


Orpheus

by sysrae



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anal Sex, Angst, Breakfast, D/s, Dean Hates Himself, Dean/Aaron (past), Dean/Alistair (past), Dom!Cas, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Explicit Consent, Falling In Love, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Humor, Fluff and Smut, Gay Bar, Homophobia, Hot Chocolate, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Light Bondage, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Marking, Nightmares, Past Sexual Abuse, Sandover, Self-Hatred, Shower Sex, Sub!Dean, Subdrop, Tattooed Castiel, Tattooed!Castiel, Tattoos, The Cage, Topping from the Bottom, accountant!Cas, artist, artist!Cas, dom!Dean, librarian!Dean, mechanic!Dean, sub!cas, switch!castiel, switch!dean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-27
Updated: 2014-11-23
Packaged: 2018-02-18 22:29:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 20
Words: 84,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2364347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sysrae/pseuds/sysrae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The club is Dante's, the room is the Cage, and Dean is only there because he hates himself. He's buzzdrunk from the shots he had at the upstairs bar, and dizzy from the heat. Ugly music thumps his bones, the juddering bassline overlaid with exactly the sort of discordant techno-trash he otherwise wouldn't stomach in a fit. The Cage smells of sweat, sex and spilled beer, the tight space full of half- and near-naked bodies gyrating against each other and – shit, is that guy actually naked? He is, and the two men sandwiching him on the dancefloor look pretty pleased about it. Dean, in his jeans and tee, is practically overdressed, and as he stands there, equal parts aroused and ashamed, he has a brief moment of clarity. Get out. Go home. Stop punishing yourself.</p><p>Almost, he does. But through the din and crush, he suddenly feels eyes on him, and when he finds their owner, he remembers why he came.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The club is Dante's, the room is the Cage, and Dean is only there because he hates himself. He's buzzdrunk from the shots he had at the upstairs bar, and dizzy from the heat. Ugly music thumps his bones, the juddering bassline overlaid with exactly the sort of discordant techno-trash he otherwise wouldn't stomach in a fit. The Cage smells of sweat, sex and spilled beer, the tight space full of half- and near-naked bodies gyrating against each other and – shit, is that guy _actually_ naked? He is, and the two men sandwiching him on the dancefloor look pretty pleased about it. Dean, in his jeans and tee, is practically overdressed, and as he stands there, equal parts aroused and ashamed, he has a brief moment of clarity. _Get out. Go home. Stop punishing yourself._

Almost, he does. But through the din and crush, he suddenly feels eyes on him, and when he finds their owner, he remembers why he came.

The guy is watching him from the far wall, tattooed arms crossed over his black shirt, a questioning smirk on his lips. He's tall and lean, with mussed dark hair and a stubbled jaw, and something in Dean goes weak as the rest of him thinks, _Perfect_. He returns the stare, chin lifted in a come-hither challenge, which does the trick nicely. The stranger straightens and heads towards him, cutting through the crowd like a shark. Up close, he's almost as tall as Dean, and when he stops, he leans in close – his mouth to Dean's ear, because it's too loud to be heard otherwise – and says, 'You look almost as bored as I feel.'

The stranger's voice is rough and warm, and goes straight to Dean's core. 'Something like that,' he replies, heart pounding.

The words _do you want to get out of here?_ hang between them, the louder for being unspoken.

'I'm Castiel,' says the stranger.

'Dean,' says Dean, too startled to lie. He wasn't expecting anything so civil as a name; not even the upstairs at Dante's is that sort of place at this time of night, and the Cage never is. He tries to get the conversation back on track, back to the familiar, broken normalcy he needs more than wants, but Castiel's gaze is sharp and blue, and renders him stuttertongued. 'Do you, uh, want to? Go, I mean, I, we can –'

'We can go,' says Castiel, after a beat. 'Lead on.'

Obedient, Dean heads for the stairs, but doesn't turn to see if the stranger is following; partly because he's afraid to look, but mostly because there's no need. He can feel the other man's presence like an itch between his shoulders, and when he finally wends his way through the upstairs bar and out into the street, the cold air and comparative quiet hitting him like a slap to the face, Castiel is right beside him. Dean shivers, club sweat cooling on his skin, and wraps his arms around his stomach. He looks at Castiel, waiting for the other man's cue. Dante's doesn't bother with bouncers this late on a week night, which means they're alone, and Dean is acutely aware of just how many times he's been fucked in the alley outside the club, how many times he's been down on his knees with a stranger's cock in his mouth.

'Come on,' Castiel says, suddenly. 'I know a place near here.'

And just like that, he starts walking, leaving Dean to stare at him, completely off-balance but compelled to follow, caught in his wake like metal dragged after a magnet. Castiel has lean legs, narrow hips and a quick, impatient stride, and as they turn onto the main street, Dean is strangely hypnotised by the play of his shoulders. He shakes his head, forces himself to focus ( _run_ , a small voice whispers, _you're off script, this is dangerous, run_ ), and almost trips over his feet when Castiel says, without any apparent irony, 'Sorry, I thought it was – ah! No, here we are,' and ducks into a doorway.

Mystified, Dean follows him, and does a double-take when 'here' turns out to be a cozy, hole-in-the-wall place that's like the bastard offspring of a wine bar and a coffee shop, complete with dark wood panelling, red leather chairs and chalk boards advertising various types of alcoholic hot chocolate, which, what? That's a _thing_? He's so taken aback, he barely even registers being seated until suddenly, somehow, he's sitting across from Castiel in a circular booth and clutching a laminated drinks menu.

'What do you want?' Castiel asks, and Dean thinks, _That is an excellent question_.

Being a literal rather than existential query, however, what he actually says in response is, 'I'll try the, uh, hot chocolate with amaretto,' because why the hell not?

'Me, too,' says Castiel, and the suddenness of his smile – the _joy_ of it, where it crinkles his eyes and brow and nose – is the cruellest sort of suckerpunch. Dean can't breathe; he's rooted to the spot. Oblivious, Castiel rises to order the drinks, and Dean just sits there, stomach churning at the prospect of how very, very bad this could go once the other shoe finally drops, because kind men who buy you hot chocolate don't frequent Dante's, and especially not the Cage, and that means Castiel is hiding something terrible, and _oh, god, what if he drugs me, what if he's violent, what if he wants to tie me up, what if –_

'Dean? Are you all right?'

Blue eyes blinking down at him; it's a miracle Dean doesn't flinch.

'Fine,' he croaks. 'I just, uh – I've never been here before, is all. Didn't even know this place existed.'

'Not many people do,' says Castiel, and smiles again, sliding back into his side of the booth. 'Or if they do, they don't always realise it's open late. Still, they seem to do pretty good business.'

Just then, a waitress arrives, the tray in her hands bearing two glass mugs that are, in fact, jam jars with welded-on handles. Dean reaches for his drink – it can't be drugged if she made it, right? – and takes a tentative sip. It's hot, but not so much that it burns his mouth, and the almond taste of amaretto is comforting and pleasant. There's a not-quite-awkward silence as he and Castiel drink, and then Dean blurts, 'Do you go to Dante's often?'

Castiel frowns, his mug held halfway to his lips. His elbows are braced on the table, and for the first time, Dean gets a proper look at his tattoos. Both sleeves feature thorny vines intertwined with plants and animals, but each arm is different: a red-gold dragon curls around his left wrist, its wings flaring up his forearm, while on the right, a spotted cat peeks out from behind a crumbling statue.

'Not often, no,' says Castiel, his tone oddly guarded. 'Why? Do you?'

Dean thinks of the Cage, and the alley; of all the times he's told himself he won't go back, and how he always does. 'Not often,' he echoes, softly.

'I didn't think so,' Castiel says. 'No offence, but you looked a little out of place in there.'

'Oh?' says Dean. His fingers tremble around the mug. 'How so?'

'Well, for one thing, you weren't dancing.' Castiel smiles a little, sipping his hot chocolate. 'And for another, you looked – well, a bit lost, frankly.'

'Lost.' He's trying so hard not to bristle, to keep his voice flat, but Jesus, that hurts more than it should. 'And you like lost things, I take it?'

'Not especially.' Castiel looks at him through long, dark lashes. 'But you interested me.'

 _I bet I did_ , Dean thinks. He gulps the last of his drink and puts the mug down before Castiel can see how his hands are shaking. 'Well, that was nice. Any thoughts as to what we might do next?'

'I have a few ideas,' says Castiel. Almost, he seems to hesitate, but his gaze never wavers. 'My apartment is two blocks over. We could –'

'Sure,' says Dean, and the word comes out in a rush of air. 'Sure, let's do that.'

Castiel's lips part, but he doesn't speak again. Just nods. Dean waits as he pays, then follows him back outside again, into air that's even colder now than before, and onto streets that are eerily quiet. They walk in silence, Dean a half-step behind. He's shivering with anticipation and no small degree of fear, but despite that, his arousal is mounting. It feels like forever since they left the club, and Castiel is beautiful enough that Dean could forgive him anything, so long as he also gives him what he needs.

'Here,' says Castiel suddenly, stopping outside an expensive block of apartments. Dean bites his lip, fighting the sudden urge to laugh as Castiel lets them into the lobby and presses the lift button. The doors slide open instantly, and Dean is somehow wholly unsurprised when Castiel takes them up to the very top floor, because of course he has the penthouse suite in a place like this. They step out into the hall, and all at once, the tension between them is so thick, it's almost choking. God, who is this guy? Dean was only out for a quick, hard fuck, and Castiel hasn't even touched him yet, but here he is, as eager and trusting as if he'd never learned better. He watches as Castiel unlocks his door; or rather, he watches Castiel's mouth, his expressive, chapped lips, and licks his own at the thought of licking them.

The lock clicks open. 'Here we are,' Castiel murmurs, reaching in to flick on the lights. Dean steps through and stands by the threshold, waiting as Castiel shuts the door.

They stare at each other, and Dean gulps, unable to look away. There's an intensity to Castiel's gaze that is at once both intimate and impersonal, and god, his eyes are so fucking blue, it's like he's drowning in them. He's breathing too fast, hands trembling by his sides, as braced as he can be for whatever type of aggressive kink has prompted a man this handsome, charming and seemingly well-off to frequent the Cage at Dante's, and _oh, fuck, he's going to hurt me, he's going to change, he's_ –

Castiel slides a gentle hand up the side of Dean's face, and kisses him.

For an instant, Dean is so shocked, he almost forgets to breathe. And then it's like his blood is on fire: he kisses back fiercely, grabbing Castiel's waist and pulling him closer, gasping when the other man backs him against the door, their bodies flush. Dean runs his hands under Castiel's shirt, feeling the play of hard, lean muscle, panting with need as Castiel's fingers twine through his hair. Teeth graze his lips, and suddenly Castiel is trailing kisses down his throat, nipping the skin, stroking lightly up Dean's sides before grabbing his shirt and yanking it over his head. Castiel pauses, breathing heavily as he looks at Dean, hands sliding over his chest. Leaning in, he sets a mouth to Dean's nipple, teasing with tongue and teeth. Dean hisses with pleasure, head tipped back against the door, hands sliding blindly up Castiel's arms, needing as a matter of urgency to see just how far up those tattoos go, clutching at whatever fabric he can reach and pulling, desperate to get beneath it. Castiel lifts his head and lets him do it, and when the tee is gone, Dean actually groans, because Castiel's torso is one gorgeous artwork, stretching from collarbone to hip and spilling over his back.

'Oh, fuck, Cas,' he breathes, hands sliding reverently over inked ribs. It's such a glorious sight, he forgets what they are to each other, stepping close to mouth at his shoulder, wanting to taste as much of him as possible.

'Cas?' comes the soft inquiry.

Dean jerks back, a shocked blush spreading up his neck. 'Shit, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have – I didn't mean –'

Castiel looks puzzled. 'Hey. It's OK. It's just a name.' And then, with a smile that's equal parts shy and wicked, 'I think I like it.' He closes the distance between them, lips brushing provocatively against Dean's ear. 'Say it again.'

'Cas,' Dean whispers, and then they're kissing, hot and urgent as Cas pulls him further into the apartment, hands roaming possessively over Dean's back. They kick off their shoes and socks without breaking apart, which is something Dean's never managed before, and then Cas hauls him into a room illuminated by moonlight alone, the door swinging shut behind them. Dean is plunged into shadows, utterly blind as Cas spins him around. A mattress hits the backs of his knees, and he falls with Cas on top of him, pulse racing because this is it, this is the other shoe, and it's all going to go wrong –

Cas kisses him again, so passionately that Dean can't help but respond; he's shamefully hard, and as Cas slips a thigh between his legs, he ruts up against him, hands tracing the tattoos he can no longer see. Cas growls impatiently, reaching down to unzip Dean's fly, followed by his own; they wriggle upwards, shedding jeans and boxers like snakeskin, leaving them naked and pressed together. Dean gasps, back arching as Cas takes hold of him, thumbing precum along his shaft as he sucks his pulse-point, and oh, god, he wants to relax into it, wants to trust that this is really as good as it feels, but that's just madness. Isn't it? Cas slides down his body, hot kisses trailing from collar to chest to hip to thigh, and takes him in his mouth, tongue sliding artfully down his length. Dean whimpers, reflexively digging his fingers through that thick, dark hair, and thrusts into Cas's mouth, babbling as he squirms.

'Please, Cas, fuck, I don't, that's – oh, _fuck_ , what are you – I –'

Cas gently bites his inner thigh, then pushes himself back up Dean's body, kissing him again. Dean is dizzier now than he was in the heat of the Cage, more lost than he's been in years, one hand clutching at Cas's back as the other grips him, sliding that slick, warm length against his fingers. Cas buries his face in Dean's shoulder, stubble scraping the tender skin as his breathing hitches.

'Wait,' he murmurs, and suddenly he's rolling onto one elbow, reaching across to the bedside table and fumbling with the drawer. Dean tenses, sweating and still as his eyes flick over the ceiling. He can see better now, the shape of the room a sketch in silver, charcoal, grey. Then Cas falls back, his grin bright in the gloom, and flourishes a condom and a bottle of lube.

'Right,' he murmurs, setting them down on the mattress. 'Now. Where were we?'

Something twists in Dean's chest. 'Here,' he rasps, and pulls Cas back down for a kiss, taking control for the sole purpose of ceding it. Dean writhes beneath him, urgent as he goads Cas with his body, hungry for more. Cas takes the hint; there's a noise as he flips the cap off the bottle of lube, a grunt as he shifts his weight again, and then a slick digit is pushing at Dean's entrance.

'Do it,' he pants, 'Jesus, Cas, do it, just do it –'

The finger slips into him, rolling expertly. Dean whimpers, pushing himself onto it, and a second follows, crooking against his sweet spot. Then a third, and he grips the sheets, his breathing rapid and ragged as he stares at Cas, who stares at him, _into_ him, his gorgeous tattoos darkened into a swathe of shadow. Not looking away, Cas grabs the condom with his free hand and tears the foil with his teeth, reaching down to sheath himself in a single, fluid movement. He teases Dean a moment longer, then pulls out his fingers, smearing the excess lube on himself.

'Do it,' Dean says again, as Cas lines up between his raised knees, 'fuck, just fuck me –'

Cas pushes into him, deliberate and careful. His hands slide up the underside of Dean's thighs, then down to grip his hips. He bottoms out and pauses, looking down as though memorising the sight of Dean spread beneath him.

'Beautiful,' he murmurs, and before Dean can even process the word, Cas starts to fuck him, slowly at first, but with an escalating intensity that knocks the breath from his lungs. Dean is gasping, legs wrapped around Castiel's back as his hands clutch helplessly at the linen. The pleasure is so intense, he's only dimly aware of the fact that he's begging, _oh god please yes, harder, please, please,_ the breathless words more prayer than plea. He'd forgotten, or made himself forget, that sex could be like this, that it didn't have to be quick and dirty and shameful; that a partner might lean down and kiss Dean's throat, as Cas does now, and mouth his own urgent litany, _I've got you, Dean, come for me, come for me_ , while reaching down to stroke him in time with his thrusts. And only then, as Cas moves up to suck Dean's bottom lip, those blue eyes boring into him, does he realise Cas was never going to hurt him.

Dean lets out a sound that's half sob, half shout, and comes harder than he has in forever, his whole body shaking as Cas continues to fuck him through the aftershocks.

'Cas,' he pants, hands coming up to cup the other man's face, 'Cas, Cas, Cas –'

Castiel shudders and comes with a cry, head dropping down to press against Dean's shoulder. Dean rocks his hips as Cas continues to move, both of them shaking and breathing hard. Finally, Cas pulls out, sitting back on his heels as he removes the condom, knots the end and throws it away. He lies down alongside Dean, pulling him close for a kiss, and runs a hand across Dean's arm, his fingers splaying gently over the muscle.

'You're shivering,' Cas says. He almost sounds surprised. 'Do you want to get under the blankets?'

Just like that, the uncertainty is back, and with it comes the fear. Dean gulps. 'You don't have to – I can go, I can just –'

Cas strokes a thumb over his cheek. 'It's late. You're more than welcome to stay.'

'I –' He shuts his eyes, opens them again. He's overwhelmed, and something in him cracks. 'What is this? What do you want from me?'

Cas blinks at him, confused. 'I don't understand.'

Dean is shaking, and not just from cold. 'It's just, if there's something else, if you want to h-hurt me, if this a trick, I need to know now, I need to know what you want –'

'Dean.' Cas pulls away from him, horror in his voice. 'I'm not going to hurt you. God, I would never – why would you even ask that?' He sits up, turning on a bedside light, and in the sudden glow, his face is stiff with shock.

Dean curls up around his knees, looking at Cas in total incomprehension. 'You were in the Cage,' he says, stating the obvious. 'At Dante's. You said you'd been there before.'

'So?'

' _So?_ ' Dean says, incredulous. 'So it's fucking _Dante's_ , is what! How can you go there and not know what that means?'

Cas stares at him. 'But I _don't_ go there, not like that – my brother runs the place, that's all. His office is in the basement level, and sometimes I grab a drink after I've been to see him, and I know it's a gay bar, obviously, but I don't see why you'd think –' His voice trails away, and he swallows sharply. 'It's not just a gay bar, is it.'

There's a hole in Dean's chest. He can't look at Cas, can't bear the sight of those beautiful tattoos, those piercing eyes. He stares at the sheets, and when he speaks again, it comes out flat and quiet.

'Dante's has a... a reputation. You go there if you want, you know, something quick, dirty, and downstairs, the Cage, is where you look if you like it rough, or if you don't care, and I thought, when you brought me here, you wanted something worse, or more control, and I didn't –' he forces himself to look at Cas, and it's unbearable, '– oh god, Cas, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry – I'm, I'll go, I –'

He rises as he speaks, stumbling out of the bed, grabbing his clothes, and suddenly his throat is tight with tears, because he's fucked everything up, _again_ , and this is why he goes to Dante's in the first place, so he doesn't have to worry about hurting anyone, or making them deal with his baggage, which is both considerable and all his own fault –

A warm hand lands on his shoulder. Dean yelps, startled into dropping his clothes, and when he turns, Cas is standing there, an unreadable look on his face.

'I don't understand,' Cas says again, and something sparks in his eyes like he desperately needs to. 'What we just had, what we did – was that good for you?'

Dean is dumbstruck. 'Jesus, Cas, of course it was good. It was, I mean –' he fumbles for words, and finds only inadequacies, '– it was _really_ damn good.'

'But you were in the Cage, too.'

Dean flinches, looks away. 'Yeah. Yeah, I was.'

'Because you like it rough?' Very gently, Cas reaches up and lifts his chin with a fingertip, forcing Dean to meet his gaze. 'Or because you didn't care?'

'I didn't care.' It comes out a croak, his throat is so tight. 'Don't care, I mean, I don't deserve –'

Castiel kisses him, a soft brush of lips, and Dean makes a noise like he's cut himself. 'What don't you deserve?' Another kiss. 'Tell me.'

'This,' Dean whispers. 'Cas, I'm not –' He shuts his eyes, unable to keep from leaning into Cas's touch, '– I fuck things up, I should go, I should –'

'Stay.' Cas cups his cheek and kisses him again, and when they pull apart, the look on Cas's face almost undoes him. 'Please, stay.'

Shakily, Dean says, 'OK.' And then, because it's becoming an issue, 'Can I, uh, clean myself up? I mean –'

Cas smiles. 'First door on the right.'

In a daze, Dean nods and goes. It's dark in the hall, but he doesn't have far to walk. The bathroom is spacious, almost bigger than his tiny, cramped kitchen, and covered in white tile. His heartbeat is so loud, he wonders he can't hear it echoing. He does what he came to do, then stands there, studiously avoiding his own reflection. _What are you doing, Dean?_ He wants to stay, and that's why he should go. And yet he still walks back to the bedroom, where Cas has removed the sticky top sheet and is waiting under the covers. Drymouthed, Dean slides in beside him, every muscle tense. He looks at Cas, and his chest constricts.

'Are you sure –?'

'I'm sure.' Cas smiles. 'Lie down, Dean.'

He obeys; there's a click as the light turns off, and then a shift in the mattress as Cas presses up against him, tattooed skin warm against Dean's back, one arm curling over his chest. He can feel Cas breathing between his shoulders, followed by a gentle brush of lips against his neck.

'Sleep well,' Cas murmurs.

'Yeah,' says Dean. 'You too.'

It's surreal; impossibly so. He doesn't understand why Cas is being so kind – or so intimate, for that matter. It's not like they know each other; it's not like this is going somewhere. But it's been so long since anyone held Dean like this, and he's heartsick with pretending it's something he doesn't want. He went to Dante's because he hates himself, and ended up with Castiel, who makes him feel like maybe he shouldn't.

Wrapped in Cas's arms, Dean shuts his eyes, and somehow falls asleep.

 


	2. Chapter 2

Castiel wakes to sunlight, and to a stranger curled against him. No, not a stranger – Dean. His head is pillowed on Castiel's chest, an arm flung across his stomach. Faint freckles span the bridge of his nose below eyes which, when open, are absinthe green; now, though, they're closed, the long lashes fluttering gently. His hair is neither brown nor blonde, but dark gold, gleaming in the early light; he's all bowlegs and lean muscle, and he fits against Castiel's side like a puzzle-piece he didn't know was missing. 

Which is completely absurd. It's not like Castiel makes a habit of picking up men at clubs – and especially not at the sort of place his brother apparently owns – but when he does, he understands the rules of engagement. Don't get personal, don't get attached: it's strictly catch and release. It isn't as if he'd been looking to hook up, either – he only stuck around once he'd finished his drink because there was a crush on the stairs, and he was waiting for it to clear. 

And then he saw Dean, and everything went to hell, because he is, bar none, the most beautiful man that Castiel has ever seen in his life. 

He doesn't know what possessed him to take Dean to Black Cherry, except that Dante's was tawdry, and he didn't want tawdry, while the prospect of leading him straight home felt forward, selfish. And all the while, Dean had stammered and  _blushed_ , which made Castiel want to kiss him into incoherence; he couldn't take his eyes off him, and by the time they reached the apartment, he could barely breathe for wanting. He didn't understand why someone so beautiful had gone with him, and the second they made it inside, the rules somehow ceased to apply. Castiel had worshipped Dean with his mouth and hands – still hastily, by his reckoning, because he'd been too aroused to be properly patient – and Dean had called him  _Cas_ , had chanted his name and brought him, trembling, over the edge – 

And then he'd asked if Castiel wanted to hurt him.

The memory of that conversation twists his heart, and without even meaning to, Castiel wraps his arms around Dean. The idea that anyone would think so little of themselves that they'd go to a place like Dante's in expectation of abuse is horrific enough, but the fact that  _Dean_ did so – that Castiel's kindness  _frightened_ him – is physically unbearable. Cas doesn't know why Dean feels that way, but damned if he's going to let him keep on believing it; not if he can do otherwise.

Just then, Dean stirs against him, and Castiel is seized by a mix of panic and need. When Dean wakes up, he'll most likely leave; he'll be embarrassed, angry, scared, and Cas will have to scramble for words, for a way of saying  _I know this is crazy, I know have no claim on you, but you're beautiful and I hate the thought of you hurting_ that doesn't make him sound like a possessive freak, only he doesn't know how, and Dean's eyelids are flickering open – 

Castiel leans in, and kisses him awake. 

He tries to be gentle, to hold his weight lightly, not wanting to pressure or frighten or impose, but struggling to keep himself in check, because Dean is beautiful, and just in that moment, Cas wants him more than his next breath.

And just like that, Dean is kissing him back, his free hand curling around Castiel's neck as he pulls him down, and Cas can't help it: he groans against Dean's mouth, his whole body shuddering as they press together, Cas above and Dean below, both warm and hard and needing. Castiel runs his hands up Dean's sides, and they pull back a little, staring at each other.

'Morning,' Dean says, breathlessly. His eyes are wide, lips slightly parted, and before Cas can think of how to respond, Dean raises his hand and traces the thorny tattoo that curves along his collarbone. The touch is hesitant, featherlight and thrilling, and it takes all Cas's willpower not to grab Dean's fingers and suck them into his mouth.

'You like them?' he asks instead, and the look that crosses Dean's face in response is downright wanton, a hungry reverence that leaves Cas uncertain of what he wants more, to bend down and devour Dean, or to be the one devoured.

'Oh, yeah,' Dean murmurs. His fingers continue their traceries, down his chest and along his sides and up his arms, until Castiel is practically shivering. 'They're amazing, Cas.'

'Show me,' Castiel says, and rolls his hips downwards, grinding them together, startling a gasp from Dean. 'Show me what you like.'

And in response, Dean actually  _growls_ and rolls them both over, pinning Cas's hands to the bed as he starts licking, biting, sucking at his tattoos. Dean ruts against him, and Castiel tips his head back and and whimpers, because  _holy_ _fuck._ Dean laves his nipples, laddering kisses down the designs that span his ribs; he lets go of Castiel's hands and digs them into his hips instead, and when he takes him in his mouth, Cas moans, low and filthy, and buries his hands in Dean's hair.

He's had blowjobs before, but not like this – not first thing in the morning, courtesy of a strange Adonis whose green eyes are even now fixed on his own, which is possibly the single sexiest thing that Castiel has ever experienced. He arches into it, fingers massaging Dean's scalp, and when Dean groans in turn, the hot vibrations shoot straight to Castiel's core.

'Dean,' he gasps, 'shit, I'm –'

The rest of the sentence is lost as Dean takes him even deeper, thumbs stroking his hipbones, and Castiel is utterly wrecked; he comes with a cry, and Dean just hollows his cheeks and swallows, eyes bright with lust. Castiel rides it out, shuddering pleasurably, and when Dean finally lifts his head, Cas keeps a hold of his hair and tugs him upwards, craving his mouth. Dean follows his touch, pushing himself up until he's lying on top of Cas, who cups his face and kisses him deeply. He can taste himself on Dean's tongue, which is far more arousing than it ought to be. His hands slip lower, smoothing circles on Dean's shoulders, stroking his way down and around to clutch his back, the muscles moving under his hands as they kiss like teenagers. 

'Fuck,' Dean gasps, and there's a look on his face like he's fallen through the looking glass; like maybe they both have. Smiling, Cas leans up and sucks on his earlobe, loving the way Dean shudders against him.

'Let me take care of you,' he whispers, realising too late that it's a double-statement but unable to find it in himself to regret it, because Dean's response is to drop his head and whimper a broken  _please_ against Cas's collarbone.

This time, it's Castiel who rolls them over, and for the first time, he notices the purpling hickies he left on Dean last night, bright bites that stand out against his freckle-flecked skin. Tempted beyond restraint, he drops his head to kiss and suck each one anew, as though Dean's body is a contract he's only half-signed, his every mark in need of reiteration. He takes his time, hands sliding along Dean's thighs and flanks, stroking his balls, savouring each new noise he elicits, every gasp and shudder. He licks around the base of Dean's cock, traces patterns on his thighs and perineum with spit-slicked fingers, teasing in every way he knows how, and only when Dean is reduced to whimpered pleading –  _please Cas fuck I need it baby, I need you, please_ – does he swallow him down. Dean bucks wildly, one hand tangled in his hair, the other stretched up to grip the headboard, and starts to fuck Cas's mouth. 

And Castiel lets him, moaning encouragement, palms braced on the mattress as Dean finds his rhythm, hips jerking up and down as Castiel tongues his length. Dean's choked cries are clotted with the very best kind of blasphemy, blunt nails digging at Cas's scalp the closer he comes to climax until, with a sharp, final thrust, he tips over the edge and collapses back, panting like he's run a marathon. Cas swallows, though more messily than Dean did for him – he has to lick the excess off Dean, who raises his head in surprise at the continued attention and then mumbles, ' _Fuck,_ Cas,' when he realises what he's doing. 

Castiel grins and kisses his way back up Dean's chest, delighted when the other man grabs him and crushes their mouths together. When Cas finally pulls back, Dean is breathless beneath him, wide-eyed and wonderful. Cas smiles at him, a small laugh tugging the corner of his mouth, and without quite meaning to, he reaches up and gently smooths an errant strand of hair away from Dean's forehead. Dean stills, and it suddenly hits Castiel that they're strangers to one another; that this is the sort of casual intimacy you're meant to have with a partner – or at the very least, with someone you've known for more than eleven hours, especially when a good nine of those were spent asleep – and not with the as-yet-lastnameless hookup you met in the seedy downstairs room of your brother's seedier club. 

Dean seems to realise it, too. He opens his mouth, but no words come out, and Castiel scrambles for something, anything to say that won't result in awkwardness.

'Do you have somewhere to be?' he asks, and instantly knows it came out wrong, that it wasn't what he meant. Dean flinches and rolls away, his legs already over the edge of the mattress when Cas blurts out, 'Because if you don't, I could make us breakfast.' 

Heart in mouth, he stares at Dean's back, long seconds ticking by as the other man remains silent. Finally, his voice slow and careful, Dean says, 'I've got the day off, actually.'

Castiel lets out a breath he wasn't conscious of holding. He ought to be getting ready for work, but accountancy can go fuck itself sideways. 'Then you'll stay?'

Dean doesn't look around. 'Do you really want me to? Because if this is just guilt, or pity, you don't have to bother. I'm fine. I know my way home.'

Fury burns through Castiel – not at Dean, but at whoever taught him he was worthless. Moving across the bed, Cas kneels behind him and slides his arms around Dean's stomach, kissing him from shoulder to neck, the last one landing right behind his ear. 

'I want you to stay,' he murmurs, and as Dean leans back against him, Castiel holds him close. Dean twists slightly, turning to look up at him, and the mix of confusion and hope in his eyes makes the breath catch in Castiel's throat. 

'Why, though?' Dean asks. 'Why me?'

'Because.' Cas lifts a hand and cups Dean's cheek, and as the other man leans into his touch, he thinks,  _screw it_ . 'There are actually three reasons. One, you're quite astonishingly beautiful, and I want to keep looking at you. Two, I think that might be the best sex I've had in, if not my life, then a long, long time, and assuming you're amenable, I'd rather like to have more of it. And three, I'm in the mood for a decadent breakfast, and it's easier to justify pancakes if I'm not the only one eating them.'

Dean inhales sharply, and in the ensuing silence, Cas replays every word of what he just said, and wishes the ground would open up and swallow him, because who the fuck says something like that to someone they just met? Never mind that, even if he  _hadn't_ said it, he'd still have been thinking it loudly; never mind that it's true. 

And then Dean smiles, the expression spreading across his face until he seems lit up from within, and Castiel's heart damn near stops beating, because how can one man be that beautiful? It shouldn't be physically possible, and yet the proof is right there in front of him.

'OK,' says Dean, and Cas kisses him, a light brush of lips that burns through him like brandy. Then he pulls back, and smiles again, and hops out of bed, grabbing two robes from the back of the door and throwing one to Dean.

'Here,' he says. 'No point getting dressed just yet.'

'No,' says Dean, stroking the material. 'Man, this is soft.'

'I think it's hydrocotton, something like that. My brother gave me a bunch of them for Christmas. Not the brother who owns the club,' Castiel adds quickly, seeing the way Dean's brows shoot up, 'one of the others.'

Fortunately, Dean looks more interested than perturbed. 'Big family?' he asks, shrugging into the robe. 

'You could say that. There's five of us – two sets of twins, and me the middle.'

'Yikes!' Dean laughs. 'That sounds, uh, challenging. I've only got the one brother, and he's difficult enough. But all those twins – that must've been something, growing up. And weird for you, without one.' He tilts his head, a strange sort of sympathy in his eyes. 'Did you ever wish you were a twin, too?'

The question sends an unexpected pang through Castiel. 'Technically, I am one,' he says, unable to keep the wistfulness from his tone. 'Or was, rather. I had a twin sister in utero, but she was stillborn. The cord caught around her neck.'

Dean pales. 'God, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have –'

Castiel stops him with a kiss, hands resting lightly on Dean's hips, lingering there until he feels the other man relax. 'You know,' he murmurs, 'you don't have to keep apologising for things that aren't your fault. It was a reasonable question.'

'Yeah, but I still –' 

'Not. Your. Fault,' says Castiel, enunciating each word. 'Understand?'

The look Dean gives him is equal parts pain and wonderment. 'How are you a real person? I mean, you have no idea, you don't know me, but you keep saying these things like I matter, like I'm not complete trash –' he gulps, a blush spreading up his neck, '– Jesus, how can you even look at me, after what I said last night?'

Gently, Cas says, 'You're not trash, Dean. I don't know why you think you are, why you went out with the apparent aim of hurting yourself, but it doesn't make me think less of you. I – I want to know you, I think. If you'll let me.'

'You don't want that,' Dean says, but he doesn't step out of Cas's arms, either.

'Do  _you_ , though?'

'What?'

'Want to know me?' And god, his chest actually tightens at the prospect of Dean saying no, which is ridiculous on every conceivable level, and even knowing that, it still leaves him feeling shaky. For a moment, they just stare at each other, the moment balanced on a precipice that has absolutely no business being where it is, except that some stupid combination of kismet and pheromones has conspired to put it there, and how the hell did this happen, anyway? Castiel is a sensible person; he's not in the habit of baring his soul to strangers, or enticing them to try and return the favour, and yet – 

'Yes,' Dean whispers, and kisses him.

Rationality goes out the window. Castiel licks into Dean's mouth, bites his bottom lip, pushes him up against the wall and lets his hands roam over him like they didn't just blow each other senseless. Dean melts into him, fingers on his hips and back, head dipping down to suck a hickie on Cas's throat.

' _Fuck_ ,' says Castiel, because not only has Dean ruined his vocabulary, he's actively ruining him for any other sexual partner, too. He's never felt this attracted to anyone in his  _life_ , and not for any want of practice or variety, either. He's had whole relationships that never reached this level of intensity, emotionally or sexually, and just at that moment, he doesn't know who that says more about: his previous partners, Dean, or Castiel himself. 

Trembling with the effort, Cas pulls back a little, pressing their foreheads together, and says, 'We should... um, breakfast, you know. Have some.' 

'Sure,' says Dean, hands gripping the front of Castiel's robe. 

They stand like that, breathing each other, and it's a good five seconds before Castiel remembers that he has to be the one to move first, on account of how Dean's back is against the wall, and another two before he can make himself do it, because there's a part of him that wants nothing more than to pull Dean back into bed and stay there for the foreseeable future, or until they run out of lube. 

'Breakfast,' he repeats shakily, and the smile they share is three parts nerves to five parts lust, and between that and the fact that both their robes have fallen open, it's a goddamn miracle that they ever make it to the kitchen. 

'So,' says Cas, pulling out the pancake mix as Dean takes a seat at the island, 'what is it you do, anyway?'

'Me?' says Dean, as though there's anyone else the question could possibly be intended for, a reflex that Castiel refuses to find adorable. 'Oh, um. I'm a mechanic. Well, mostly a mechanic. There's the library, too – I work there at weekends – but the rest of the time, I fix cars.'

'Cars and books,' says Cas, determinedly focusing on the skillet, because he refuses to find  _that_ adorable, either. 'That's a pretty compelling combination. Is there a story there?'

'Kind of,' says Dean. 'My dad was a mechanic, too, so I grew up learning about cars, especially old ones. I always liked working on them, so I figured it's what I'd do, you know? Make a career of it. It's not like I was banking on going to college. Never had the grades, or so I thought.' Cas turns to look at him, hearing the change in his voice. 'And then I got accepted to a school in Kansas. My kid brother applied for me, never breathed a word until the letter came in. He swore up and down it was just the one application he sent, and for years, I believed him, until were packing his things up for Stanford, and I found the rejections in a shoebox under his bed. He tried to stop me looking, but I'd figured it was just his porn collection. Don't know why he kept them all.'

Dean smiles at him, small and soft. 'I'd already graduated by then, but it still stung, seeing how many places didn't want me, even when I'd never wanted them. But then I thought about how much effort Sammy had gone to, how much he'd believed in me, and I didn't mind so much.' He ducks his head, embarrassed by the confession, and coughs. 'The point is, I qualified as a librarian, and now I do both. So.' He looks back at Cas, and this time, his smile is almost cocky. 'What about you, huh? Size of this place, it's gotta be something decent.'

Cas laughs, pouring a dollop of pancake batter into the skillet and grabbing a packet of bacon from the fridge. 'Decent, maybe. Interesting, no. I'm an accountant.'  _Who really should call in sick at some point._

Dean's jaw drops. 'No way.'

'Way.'

'But you, I mean –' Dean gestures at him, hands moving to indicate Castiel's body, '– your  _ink_ , man! How is that even remotely corporate?'

'You'd be surprised how much a good suit can cover. Besides, it's just a job, and one I happen to be good at, not my be-all, end-all. I'm not some poster-boy for the League for Fighting Chartered Accountancy.' He's not expecting a laugh – the reference goes straight over most people's heads – but he gets one from Dean, a delighted bark as his head tips back. 

'Dude! You like Monty Python?'

'Since I was a kid,' says Castiel, a pleasant warmth spreading through his stomach. He flips the pancakes, adds the bacon to the pan, and turns back to Dean. 'The Vocational Guidance Counsellor sketch was always my favourite. That, and the fish-slapping dance.'

'Both classics,' Dean agrees. 

Castiel raises an eyebrow. 'But not your favourites?'

'No. I mean, don't get me wrong, they're awesome, it's just –' He pauses, bites his lip. A faint blush colours his neck and cheeks, and when he speaks again, his eyes are fixed on Castiel. 'There's this bit they do, this moment in one of the episodes, where John Cleese is a police officer, and Michael Palin comes running up because someone's stolen some money out of his wallet, and they talk, and Cleese says there's not much they can do, and there's this pause, and then Palin says,  _Do you want to come back to my place?_ And Cleese says –'

' –  _Yeah, all right,_ ' says Castiel, completing the line. It's a reflex action, deeply ingrained from the days when he and Gabriel swapped quotes instead of having actual conversations, but the effect it has on both of them is electric. Dean's head jerks up, eyes widening in a way that makes Castiel catch his breath, and before he can think of what to say next, Dean's out of his chair and kissing him up against the fridge, hands cupped around his face. It's sweet and eager and over too quickly; Castiel barely has time to kiss back before Dean stumbles away from him, his whole face flushed bright pink. He opens his mouth, tongue darting out to whet his lips, but Castiel speaks first.

'Don't you  _dare_ ,' he says, 'apologise for that.' 

'I'm s–' Dean starts, then stops. Pain twists his expression. 'Castiel?'

'Yes?' 

'Is this a set up? Did someone put you up to it?' He laughs, his voice gone ragged and raw. 'Because if it is, you need to tell me now, or I swear to god –'

'Dean.' Cas catches his gaze and holds it, needing him to understand. 'This isn't a set up. I promise, it's me. It's just me.'

'Oh,' says Dean, and for an awful moment, he looks like he's about to cry. 'Oh.'

And that's as much as Castiel can stand; he wraps Dean in his arms, the fingers of one hand coming up to stroke his hair, and wishes he knew what to say. Dean clings to him, his heartbeat so rapid that Cas can actually feel it, a secondhand pulse that quickens his own. The smell of bacon and pancakes curls through the air, and Castiel's stomach, which apparently has no sense of timing, rumbles loudly.

'Um,' he says, somewhat embarrassed.

But to his surprise, Dean laughs, and when he pulls back and nods at the stove, he looks a little less shaky. 

'C'mon, man. Can't let the food go to waste.'

'Apparently not,' says Castiel, his rueful tone earning him a smile, and just like that, things are normal again. He serves up the bacon and pancakes on blue and white plates, and gets the good syrup Gabriel brought from Canada from the back of the cupboard, and they eat right there at the island, side by side, their knees brushing together. 

Cas is on the brink of asking whether the food's any good – it's been a while since he's cooked for anyone other than himself – but then Dean groans appreciatively around a mouthful, and Cas (who certainly isn't flashing back to earlier) takes that for approval. They eat in companionable silence, and it's not until he's scraped his plate clean that Dean puts down his cutlery and says, in a tone that almost manages to be conversational, 'I've never met anyone who knew that sketch before.'

'It means something to you,' Castiel says – gently, because it's not a question. 

Dean nods, toying with his fork. 'Yeah,' he says, and for a moment, Cas thinks that's all the explanation he's going to get. And, really, why wouldn't it be? It's not like Dean is under any obligation to sit there and spill his secrets, no matter how irrationally eager Castiel is to know them, because who the hell does that? But then, this entire whatever-it-is is hardly textbook. 

Castiel looks at Dean, who's just as stupidly beautiful in profile as he is from every other angle, and Dean glances back at him, green eyes shy behind their lashes. And then, in the halting tone of one unaccustomed to storytelling, he says, 'When I was a kid, it was the first thing that made me think that maybe I liked men, too. I was eleven, and I just, I couldn't stop thinking about it, because I didn't get the joke, you know? Took me weeks to realise that the joke is, there  _is_ no joke. I mean, Palin hitting on Cleese is incongruous, and showing a cop like that in the sixties, it was pretty subversive – still is, in a way. But it's not camped up, and it's not exaggerated: it's just two guys going home with each other, and you laugh because you weren't expecting it, but really, it's not funny. It's sweet. And it made me feel like maybe that was, I don't know... normal.'

Trying very hard to appear as though considered, heartfelt analysis of Monty Python is not a turn-on in any way whatsoever, Castiel smiles and says, 'For me, it was Eric Idle. Specifically, shirtless Eric Idle playing guitar in bed.' 

Dean grins broadly, and in a moment of perfect synchronicity – because of  _course_ they both know that sketch, too – the two of them start cheesily singing Jerusalem: ' _And did those feet in ancient times, walk upon England's mountains green –_ ' 

They break off laughing, and in that moment, Castiel knows that he's utterly fucked, because beautiful, troubled men who leave you breathless in bed are one thing, but when they also make you laugh and like your cooking and share your taste in British comedy, it's something else entirely, and Jesus, he isn't  _like_ this, he doesn't just  _bond_ with people and have easy, meaningful conversations with them over the breakfast  _he made_ , because Castiel is the sort of person politely referred to as strange and impolitely referred to as a fucking weirdo, and he doesn't know when the laughter stopped but he's staring at Dean and Dean's staring at him, and Castiel reaches out and strokes a thumb across his cheek.

'So,' says Cas, and this time, he's the one shaking. 'Shower?'

Dean swallows, breath catching audibly. 'God, yes.' 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am enormous Monty Python dork. The sketches mentioned here are:
> 
> Vocational Guidance Counsellor/League For Fighting Chartered Accountancy - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4h-wVe9a6rQ
> 
> Fish-Slapping Dance - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCwLirQS2-o
> 
> Hitting on the policeman - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bb46mYir33c
> 
> I can't find a video of shirtless Eric Idle singing Jerusalem in bed, but it's totally a thing.


	3. Chapter 3

In his morbid moments, usually after too many drinks or a session at Dante's, Dean often wonders how it will feel, when he finally has that complete mental breakdown he's spent the last decade repressing. Once, he found the seeming inevitability of it frightening, but more and more, he's been craving it, desperate for something to shock him out of complacency. Far more terrifying is the idea that it might never happen at all; or worse still, that it already has, and it didn't work, leaving him with nothing but this long, numbing slide into entropy. Better to believe his breaking point is still ahead; that he hasn't crossed one line too many. He's thought a lot about how it might happen, the ways he could bring it on himself. A day ago, he knew where he stood, and if the view was bleak, at least it was familiar. 

He never thought breaking would feel this good; that he might be killed by kindness. 

Naked and laughing, Castiel pulls him into the shower, kisses him up against the tiles, and Dean is euphoric, the way dying people sometimes are, because he doesn't care any more, and it's glorious. He digs his nails into Cas's back, savouring the way they slide together, slick and wet and shameless. Cas presses into him, body moulding to Dean's as he murmurs, 'God, you are so fucking beautiful,' and in that moment, Dean can't tell if Castiel is the edge of a cliff or the rocks beneath; just that he's already falling, and there isn't a thing in the world to hold him back.

He runs his hands over Cas's tattoos, sleek and waterbright, and leans in to mouth at them, tongue running over stars and leopards, poppies and foxes, thorns and glyphs and feathers, and suddenly it's Castiel with his back to the wall, his fingers tangled in Dean's hair as he gasps and writhes beneath him. 

'Going to lick them off me, if you're not careful,' he pants, and for an answer, Dean grips his waist and spins him around, so Castiel is facing the tiles and Dean can taste the designs on his ribs and shoulders. Unlike his chest, the tattoos here are incomplete. They creep across his edges like moss overgrowing stone, but from the top of Castiel's spine to the divots above his ass, there's nothing. Dean drops down and licks a stripe up the unmarked skin, until his lips close over the ink on Castiel's shoulder. He bites down, hands coming around to tease the other man's nipples, kissing and sucking the sensitive skin of his throat. 

Cas makes a strangled noise and arches against him, head tipped back against Dean's collarbone, and as though he wasn't already aroused, Cas says, his voice barely above a whisper, 'Fuck me.'

Dean completely forgets how to breathe. There's no way Cas just asked him that; or if he did, it can't possibly have been conscious.  _Fuck me_ , it's just something people say, an exclamation, it doesn't have to be literal, it doesn't – 

' _Dean_ ,' Cas pants, and this time, he half-turns in his arms, his blue eyes wide with lust. 'Will you?' 

'Will I what?'

'Fuck me. Here.' He gulps, and for a split second, he looks so vulnerable that he's almost a different person. 'I want to feel you inside me, I want –'

Dean cups his cheek and kisses him, sucking hard on his lower lip, his chest pressed close to Cas's back. If he was falling before, he's plummeting now, burning up like a comet in atmosphere. He runs his hands down Cas's lean hips and grips the bone, forcing himself to say, 'Are you sure?'

' _Please_ .' And then, faltering, 'I'm clean, if you – if you are, if you want, I –'

Dean puts a thumb to Cas's lips, silencing him. His eyes are glued to Castiel's, his pulse a sharp staccato. 'You'd trust me with that?'

Cas goes to answer, but Dean's thumb is still on his lips, and instead of speaking, he sucks the digit into his mouth, gently biting the pad. Breathing raggedly, Dean pulls his hand away, and Castiel says, his voice gone hoarse, 'I trust you.' 

Dean is lost for words. He hasn't topped since before he started going to Dante's, and he hasn't gone bareback since the year he lost his virginity – long enough that he thought he'd stopped wanting both things, or either, or what they represent. But Castiel has turned him inside out and upside down, and in that moment, Dean wants him more fiercely, more completely, than he's wanted anything since Aaron died. 

'I'm clean,' he whispers, and Castiel swallows and smiles, and nods his head at a small white bottle near their feet. Dean bends down to pick it up, and as he uncaps the lid, he feels like he's having an out of body experience, like this can't possibly be him, except that it is, and suddenly he's back in himself, and so aware of his skin it's almost overwhelming. Cas's palms are braced on the wall, but his head's still turned, eyes wide as he watches Dean slick his hands with oil, lips parting as Dean steps up behind him.

'Cas,' he says, the slightest shake in his voice, 'you're sure?'

'I want you,' Castiel says, simply.

They kiss, and Dean slips a hand down to stroke beneath him, gasping at the way Cas shudders into his touch. It's been so long since he's done this for someone – since anyone wanted or trusted him enough for it – but Cas makes him forget his hesitance. Dean rests his head on Castiel's shoulder, breathing ink and steam as he works him open. He strokes himself with his free hand, slicking his length with oil, then does the same for Cas, who whimpers with pleasure, thrusting hard into Dean's fist, then pushing back on the three fingers still inside him.

'Easy,' Dean murmurs, but he's desperately hard, so choked with need he can barely get even that one word out, and when Cas bucks again, forwards and back, and gasps, ' _Please_ , Dean,' he doesn't hesitate. Withdrawing his fingers, he grips his cock, lines up and slowly pushes in, and oh,  _fuck_ , he'd forgotten what this felt like. He bottoms out, his fingers curled possessively around Castiel's hips, and takes a moment savour the feeling, head spinning from more than the shower's heat. 

And then he starts to move, a series of slow thrusts that builds into rhythm, hard and steady as summer rain. He kisses Castiel's neck, back, shoulders – everywhere his mouth can reach, sucking on tattooed skin as he fights his own climax, needing to make this last. Cas is moaning, fingers slipping against the tiles. Dean shifts his stance, his forehead pressed to Cas's spine, and takes a hand off his hip to touch him, messy strokes that have them both gasping, breathless and loud against the sound of falling water.

'Dean,' Cas pants, 'fuck, you're so – I'm –' And he comes, clenching as he shudders through the aftershocks. Dean loses all control; his hips stutter, and he follows Cas over the edge, groaning as they rock together, arms coming up to wrap around Castiel's chest. Cas tips his head against Dean's shoulder, holding Dean's hands against himself, and Dean rests his cheek on Cas's temple, utterly undone. They stay like that for a good half-minute, and when they finally pull apart, it's only for a moment; Dean is shaking, and Cas pulls him close and kisses him, hands sliding wetly where they cup his face. 

Dean looks at him, at those gorgeous eyes and perfect mouth, and feels utterly inadequate. 'Was that, uh, OK? I haven't, you know, in a while.' Which is a fucking understatement, and something he's trying very hard not to think about. 'So if it wasn't –'

'Dean?' Cas puts his arms around his neck and kisses the corner of his mouth. 'Stop apologising.' More gently, he adds, 'And for the record, I haven't done it that way in a while, either.'

Dean feels his eyes widen. 'You haven't?'

'I haven't,' Cas says, smiling. 'But it felt amazing.'

A lump rises in Dean's throat. There's so much he wants to say, but even if he didn't lack the words, he certainly lacks the courage. Instead, he forces a smile. 'We should get cleaned up,' he says. 'Don't want the hot water to run out.'

Cas wrinkles his nose and mock-shudders. 'Perish the thought.' 

They soap each other down, laughing at the mutual discovery of unexpected ticklish spots, rinse, and hop out just as the spray starts to lose its heat. The towel Cas gives him is softer and fluffier than anything Dean owns, and he takes his time getting dry, enjoying the feel of it. 

It's only when he reaches for the robe that he realises what he's doing; that he ought to be putting his clothes back on, getting ready to leave. Cas asked him to have breakfast, and they've done that. No point overstaying his welcome. Which is fine; of course it's fine. Except that suddenly, Dean feels sick, and he flinches when Cas says, 'Dean? Are you all right?'

'Yeah,' he says, sounding fake and tinny in his own ears, 'yeah, fine. Just realised my clothes are in the other room, is all.'

'Oh,' says Cas, a strange note in his voice, like maybe he'd forgotten, too. 

There's a brief, awkward silence, broken when Dean coughs and says, 'I'll, uh. I'll get dressed, then,' and hurries out of the bathroom.

The bedroom is next along, Dean knows, but there are doors on either side of him, and he's lightheaded enough that he picks the wrong one, barging into a tiny room full of sunlight. He blinks, confused, and turns to leave.

Then stops, turns back again, and stares, completely dumbfounded.

It's an artist's studio. Canvasses of all shapes and sizes are stacked against shelves overflowing with sketchbooks, tubes of paint, brushes, pencils. There's a desk beneath the window, cluttered and messy, an easel in the corner, and any number of other tools scattered haphazardly over a paint-stained drop sheet. But Dean's gaze is fixed on the right-hand wall, where a series of framed prints has pride of place. He steps closer, nakedness forgotten, and takes in the sight of stars and leopards, poppies and foxes, thorns and glyphs and feathers.

Castiel's tattoos.

Behind him, the floorboards creak. Dean whirls, gaze accusing as it lights on Cas, who's every bit as naked as him.

'You said you were an accountant!'

Castiel blinks. 'I am.'

'But this –' Dean sweeps an arm, indicating the room, its contents, the prints on the wall. '– this is all yours? You designed your tattoos?'

'It is, and I did.' Cas shrugs – a little sadly, Dean thinks. 'But it's just a hobby.'

'Cas.' Dean lets out a breath, gaze wandering to a bigger canvass depicting a vivid twilight of falling stars. 'If this is what you call a hobby, I'd hate to see what you call a career. This stuff is incredible. You know that, right?'

'It's a hobby,' Cas says again, but he's fidgeting, a blush creeping up his neck. 'Please, Dean, you don't have to –'

'Have you designed other tattoos? Or just your own?'

'Just mine,' says Castiel. 'They were something of a rebellion, at least to start with. My parents didn't see art as a viable choice of career, and when I pressed the issue, they threatened to cut me off. Dutiful, dependent son that I am, I acquiesced, and continued with my degree in accountancy. And in the end, it all worked out; I have a career, and money enough to dabble however I want. But for a while, my skin was the only canvass open to me, and at the time, I felt the need to remind myself that, whatever control my family had over my studies, they didn't own my body. And once I started, I never quite stopped.' He waves a hand, as though dismissing the story. 'In any case, no. I haven't designed tattoos for other people.'

Dean walks around the studio, drinking everything in. He's never been much for classical art, but he knows what he likes, and Castiel's work is breathtaking. 'Would you, though? If someone asked?'

Cas tilts his head, a strange look on his face. 'Someone like you?'

Dean freezes, reality crashing into him with all the force of a train.  _Oh, fuck._ He's meant to be leaving, getting out of Castiel's hair, and instead he's blundering naked through the man's private space, asking invasive, inappropriately personal questions, and what the hell is wrong with him? 'I, uh, I just meant, you know –'

And suddenly Cas is in front of him, blue eyes burning intensely.

'Yes,' he says, and kisses him, hands coming to rest on his waist. Dean gasps and kisses back, his arms twining around Castiel's neck seemingly of their own accord. Naked and warm in the sunlight, they press together, alternately languid and urgent, until Cas laughs and breaks away. 'Um.'

'Um,' Dean agrees, so dizzy with it all, he can barely think straight. 'Wasn't I leaving?'

Cas strokes gently up his back. 'Were you?'

'Shouldn't I be?'

'Says who?'

'I don't know.' He gulps, mesmerised by those bright blue eyes. 'Cas, what are we doing?'

Cas smiles. 'I think you were asking about tattoos.'

'You know what I mean.' His heart is beating so fast, it feels like there's a hummingbird trapped behind his ribs. 'You don't know me, and I don't know you – I don't even know your last name, for god's sake –'

'It's Novak,' Cas supplies. 'And you?'

'Winchester,' Dean says, stupidly. 'But that's not the point.' 

'Oh?'

'No!' He's flustered, frustrated, and the worst part is, he doesn't know why. Dean drops his arms, and Castiel courteously returns the favour, but given that they're both still naked, it's hard to pretend the gesture means much. 'Dammit, Cas, this isn't a goddamn date, OK? It's the morning after a hookup, and that means it ends when I leave this house. Which is what I'm going to do. So.' 

He turns on his heel, hating himself, but Castiel catches his arm, a light touch that Dean could easily break, but doesn't. 'Don't,' Cas says, and there's something desperate in his voice, a plea that seems to vibrate at the frequency of Dean's raw, abraded soul.

'Don't what?' he snaps. 'Leave?' 

Castiel's voice is quiet. 'Don't pretend this is meaningless.'

'And who says it isn't?'

'Dean.' Cas grips his arm, eyes dark with urgency. 'Don't lie to yourself. You know, you  _know_ this isn't ordinary. And you can go if you want, I'm not forcing you to stay, but please, can I see you again?' And then, more softly, 'I would like to see you again.' 

And still, Dean hesitates. He's terrified, caught on the brink of something he neither understands nor feels he deserves, and Cas seems to know it. He lets go of Dean's arm, but the anxious expression doesn't leave his face, and Dean just stares at him, utterly unable to articulate what he wants.

'I –' 

A sudden thunder cuts him short. They both jump, frozen by the noise, and only when it sounds again does Dean realise what it is: knocking, furious knocking on Cas's front door.

'Cassie!' someone bellows, male and clearly worked up. 'Cassie, you open this door right now, or so help me god, I will use my key! You have fifteen seconds to comply!'

All the colour drains from Castiel's face. 'Oh,  _shit_ .'

'Who is that?' Dean whispers, and instantly doesn't want to know, because of course Castiel has a boyfriend, of course this was going to go wrong, of course – 

'It's one of my brothers,' Cas replies, teeth gritted. 'Gabriel.'

'Oh.' Dean swallows, new worries replacing the old like ocean waves. 'Does he really have a key?'

'He does.' 

Another bout of banging. 'Cassie! Come on, little bro, don't keep me waiting!'

Briefly, Castiel shuts his eyes, and when he opens them again, his expression is deceptively calm. 'Dean, would you be so kind as to wait for me in the bedroom? I promise, I won't be long.'

'OK,' says Dean, because what the fuck else is there to say? And he lets Castiel usher him out of the studio, down the hall and into the bedroom. 

'Hang on!' Castiel roars at the door, as Gabriel starts knocking again. 'I'm coming!' And then, turning back to Dean, 'You don't have a problem with fratricide, right?'

Dean manages a watery smile. 'Increasingly, no.' 

'Good.' And with that, Castiel presses a quick kiss to his cheek and hurries out, leaving Dean alone with his clothes and far too many thoughts.

 


	4. Chapter 4

Castiel grabs his robe from the bathroom, seething as he knots the cord and hurries through to the front room. Gabriel is still knocking hard, and when Cas finally opens the door, his brother rushes in like he's expecting armed resistance.

'Jesus, Cassie!' he says, and grabs him in for a rough, angry hug. He pulls back, gripping Castiel's shoulders, raking him with his gaze. 'What the hell happened to you last night? Are you all right? Do I need to kill someone?'

'Gabriel!' Cas steps away from him, struggling to keep his temper under control. 'Explain.'

Gabriel looks briefly murderous. ' _Me_ explain? Do you even know what time it is? Where the hell have you been all day!'

'All day? It's not even noon.'

'Try two thirty, genius,' Gabe says, scathing as ever.

'I – what?' Castiel blinks, thrown. 'It can't be.' But sure enough, the wall clock confirms it: 2:34PM, which means that he and Dean slept in for longer than he thought. 'Huh. Well, I'll be damned.'

Gabriel's jaw twitches. 'You'll be damned? That's _it_ ? I spend the morning in fear for your safety, and you'll be _damned_?'

'In fear for my safety? Don't be so dramatic.' Castiel laughs, but for once in his life, Gabriel remains stonefaced. 'All right, what is it? What am I missing?' And then, in sudden panic, 'Has something happened? Michael, Anna, they're not –?'

'Oh, for the love of –' Gabriel throws up his hands. 'Everyone other than you is fine.'

Castiel frowns. 'I don't understand.'

Gabriel sighs. 'Cassie, you've barely missed a day of work in your life, and when you do, you always ring in. Always, OK? But today, you didn't. The office tried to call you, but your phone is off, and when you still hadn't showed by noon, that freaked them out enough that they rang me, and I rang Luke, and _he_ told me you left Dante's last night with one of his regular _patrons_.'

Gabriel pronounces the latter word like a synonym for _parasites,_ or possibly _scum_. Castiel bristles. 'And?'

' _And_ ?' His brother looks apoplectic. 'Have you ever _been_ to Luke's club? It's practically a brothel, Cassie! It's notorious in all the wrong ways, and you met someone there, someone who knows what kind of place it is and goes there anyway, and then you vanished off the face of the fucking earth. And I thought –' and here, at last, he lowers his voice, a glint of concern in his eyes, '– I thought something awful had happened to you.'

It's such an extraordinary speech, it takes Castiel a full three seconds to parse his brother's meaning. 'You thought I'd been _raped_?' he says, incredulous.

'I didn't know what had happened!' Gabriel yells. 'I just knew something was wrong, and you wouldn't answer your fucking _phone_!'

Castiel runs a hand over his face, groaning slightly. 'The battery must be dead. It was low yesterday, and I forgot to hook it up to the charger last night. Which also explains the lack of an alarm, now I think about it.'

'Oh, well, obviously!' Gabriel stares daggers at him. 'Silly me for caring.'

Castiel squints at his brother, baffled. 'I appreciate the concern for my well-being, but I am, as Anna delights in pointing out, a grown-ass man. Did you honestly not consider that I might just be having, ah, a good time?'

Adding insult to injury, Gabriel actually laughs. 'OK, firstly, the last time you had what we normal humans refer to as a _good time_ , I'm pretty sure we had a different President. And secondly, whatever you did last night, you don't take a morning off for someone you met at Luke's tawdry excuse for a business.'

Castiel goes very still, quiescent anger stirring. 'Oh? And why is that, Gabriel?'

'Because,' says Gabe, with acid patience, 'Dante's is frequented by exactly three types of people: users, whores, and broken souls, and by the way, that's Luke's phrase for them, not mine. That's what he thinks of his _clientèle,_ and unless you've got some unspeakable secret kink for the stench of herpes and desperation that I don't know about, none of that exactly sounds like your bag. Which is why I assumed, not unreasonably, that if your lapse in judgement last night had lead to an unplanned absence this morning, it probably wasn't because of anything fun. So.' He crosses his arms, and looks Castiel straight in the eye. 'I'll ask you again: do I need to kill someone?'

'No,' Cas growls, 'but I might. Get out, Gabriel.'

'Not until you tell me you're all right.'

'I'm fine! Or I was, until you showed up.'

'If you're so fine, then why did you miss work?'

Castiel rolls his eyes. 'Oh, like you've never stayed out late and taken a day off? Abandon the high ground before it disintegrates under the weight of your hypocrisy, you sanctimonious ass.'

'OK, OK! Yeesh!' Gabriel pulls a face. 'Just promise me you were careful, and I'll be on my merry.'

Remembering the shower, Castiel drops his gaze, cheeks burning, and Gabriel, who had been about to turn for the door, stops dead.

'You _were_ careful, weren't you?' And then, almost pleading, 'Tell me you didn't.'

'Gabriel –'

'Jesus _fuck_ , Cassie!' Gabe grabs his shoulder, genuinely horrified. 'You're barebacking strangers now? Are you _insane_? That fucking club is a Petri dish! What, did he tell you some sob story about how he just wanted to connect with someone, really feel things properly? Did you think he was one of your strays?'

Castiel wrenches away from him, embarrassed and angry. 'There was,' he says, voice barely controlled, 'no _story_ , and what do you mean, _one of my strays_?'

Gabe is visibly fuming. 'Oh, you know _exactly_ what I mean. You're a soft touch, Cassie, always have been, and that goes for humans as well as animals. You and your fucking saviour complex, I always said it was more stupidity than kindness, and here's the proof! For fuck's sake, even Luke has more sense than to dip his wick in that cesspool, and he runs the bloody place!'

'My sex life is none of your business –'

'It is when you're endangering yourself!' Gabe snaps. 'Now go get dressed, will you? I have no desire to drag your ass to the nearest clinic when all that stands between it and the world is a dressing gown, but so help me, I will if I have to.'

' _Make me_ ,' Cas snarls, 'you overbearing, judgemental –'

'Cas.'

The single word hits him like a blow. He turns slowly, nausea churning his guts, and there's Dean, fully dressed and so unnaturally pale, he looks halfway to dead. 'It's all right,' he says, and though he's tried to scrub them away, the tear-tracks are clear on his cheeks. 'I'm going now.'

' _That's_ him?' says Gabriel, high and shocked. 'He's still _here_?'

'Not for long,' says Dean, and makes for the door.

Castiel leaps to intercept him, mortification hot in his throat. 'Dean, no, please, you don't have to –'

Dean's expression is stiff with self-loathing. 'He's right, you know. I might as well be a whore. I let myself get fucked like one often enough.'

'Don't say that.' Cas grabs his arm, tries to reach him like he did in the studio, but this time, Dean pulls gently away, and Cas is too numb to stop him. 'Please, don't –'

'Bye, Cas,' Dean says, softly. He smiles a terrible, brittle smile, and the truth of it hits Castiel like a suckerpunch: Dean overheard _everything_ , all Gabe's awful assumptions about whores and strays and Petri dishes, and now he won't stay to argue the point, because he _agrees_ , and there's no time left in which to convince him otherwise.

'Please,' Cas says again, but it's too late: Dean shakes his head, his green eyes glassy and sad, and slips out the door like a ghost.

The latch clicks shut, and Castiel feels like he's snapped a rib. He wants to run after him, but he's terrified of doing more harm than good. Dean was defensive even before Gabe showed up and shot his mouth off, and as badly as he wants to, Castiel has no right to drag Dean back to his apartment and kiss him until he stops hating himself. If he just knew what the problem was, then maybe he'd trust himself to say the right thing, but Dean is still a stranger to him – and now, it seems, will stay that way forever.

Which leaves Cas standing there, chest tight with a grief so misplaced and inappropriate, it feels like an alien thing.

'That... wasn't what I was expecting,' says Gabriel, into the silence.

Castiel whirls on his brother, breathing hard. 'Get out, Gabe. Get the _fuck_ out of my house.'

Contrition and defiance war on Gabriel's face, and as ever, defiance wins out. Unmoving, he lifts his chin and says, 'You still need to go to the clinic.'

The last time Castiel properly hit his brother, they were both teenagers. Gabriel had just pulled a prank which had, as sometimes happened, gone spectacularly wrong, resulting in the destruction of pretty much everything Castiel owned that was vulnerable to water. Then, he'd been scrawny, still shorter than his captain-of-the-athletics-team big brother, and too frightened of being hurt in turn to really start something dangerous.

Now, though, Cas has a good two inches on him in height, a musculature that's hard where Gabe's is soft, and nothing to hold him back.

He punches Gabriel hard in the face, savagely satisfied by how much it hurts. Gabe staggers, and Cas hits him again, and again, his fist raised for another blow when Gabriel roars and tackles his midriff, slamming them onto the couch. Cas yelps, trying to grapple his way free, but Gabe has the advantage of both leverage and momentum, and manages to grab his wrists.

'Castiel!' he shouts, so close by Cas's ear that it might as well be a slap. 'Stop it!'

'You _bastard_!' Castiel yanks his hands free, shoving Gabe violently to the floor. But the rage is going out of him, replaced by the discomforting realisation that bathrobes are not ideal wrestling attire; panting, he stops to cover himself, and in the pause, Gabe shuffles back on his ass and slumps against the wall. They stare at each other, mutually furious, but where Castiel is only winded, Gabriel has a bloody nose, a split lip and a blossoming black eye. He reaches up to touch his face, wincing when his fingertips come away red.

And then, because he's Gabriel, his brows arch up, and he laughs.

'Damn, Cassie. You got an arm on you these days. Must be all the masturbation.'

Castiel snorts, momentarily regressing to age eleven. 'Takes one to know one.'

They grin at each other, and then Cas remembers why they were fighting, and feels even sicker than he did before. It's not too late; he can still run after Dean, grab him before he gets past the lobby, and then tell him – what? Cas doesn't know, and he's still trying to figure it out when Gabriel says, 'Cassie?'

He lifts his head. 'Yeah?'

'I really fucked that up for you, didn't I?'

Castiel swallows against the lump in his throat. 'Yeah, Gabe. You really did.'

'You seriously picked him up at Dante's?' He almost sounds impressed.

'Yes.'

'Last night?'

'Yes.'

'And you didn't know him before that? Not even in a wistful-eyes-from-afar kind of way?'

'Not even then.'

Gabriel hesitates, licking his split lip. 'I know you've gone a while between drinks, but was it really that good? And don't even think of playing the _gentlemen never tell_ card, either – under the circumstances, I'm entitled to a little salacious honesty.'

Castiel glares at him, but when he sees neither question nor comment was meant as bait, he tips his head back and sighs. 'You'll laugh at me.'

'You wound me, brother. Literally.' And he touches his eye again. 'C'mon. I'm defenceless, here. Though all things considered, I wouldn't say no to an ice pack. Or some actual ice, for that matter. Preferably two small cubes with that whiskey I gave you for Christmas.'

'You're incorrigible,' Castiel says.

'Yeah, well, you corrige enough for the both of us.' He hauls himself up right, limping over to the kitchen. 'You want one?'

'Yes, Gabe, I'll gladly have a glass of _my_ whiskey. Thanks ever so.'

'Don't be such a pissant.' He grabs an ice pack from the fridge and wraps it in a tea towel, hissing as he holds it up to his eye. 'That's half your problem, you know.' He snags two glasses from the cupboard, setting them on the bench. 'Most of the time you're so tightly wound, it's like you've got a Swiss watchmaker's stamp on your ass.' The clink of ice cubes, followed by the click of a screw-cap. 'And then, when you finally do cut lose, you never know what to do with yourself.'

He flops down on the lounge, two glasses balanced expertly in one broad palm while the other hand presses the ice to his face. 'Cheers,' he mutters, and as Castiel takes his whiskey, Gabe chinks their glasses together.

'That's one half,' says Cas, grimacing as the spirit burns his throat. 'What's the other?'

'Good old fashioned repression.' Gabriel pauses, knocking back half his generous glass in a single hit, and lifts the ice pack just enough to stare at him with both eyes. 'Cassie, you're twenty-eight years old, and you still act like mom and dad will ground your ass if you don't eat all your vegetables.'

'I do not!'

'Oh, right.' Gabe rolls his eyes. 'So accountancy, you do that for the love of it? You're happy in your career of choice?'

A muscle works in Castiel's jaw. 'It's a job, Gabriel, not a higher calling. I'm... content.'

'Which would be fine,' says his brother, 'if you didn't crave passion. You know you're talented, Cassie; you must do, or that antsy perfectionist part of you that makes you check all your prints with a spirit level wouldn't dare to hang them in the first place. Don't get me wrong, I salute your pragmatism, and getting inked when the elders made you stick your degree out? Priceless. I mean, the look on mom's face when you showed her? I laughed for a _week_.' He chuckles, and despite himself, Castiel does, too. 'But still, I always figured you'd quit the corporate stuff. You know, just stick it out long enough to get some savings, then switch over to art. Except you never have, and frankly, it's starting to warp you.'

'Frankly,' says Cas, 'feel free to go fuck yourself.'

'You know, I've tried that, and it's surprisingly difficult.' He waggles his eyebrows, and Castiel groans. 'But in all seriousness, Cassie, this guy –'

'Dean.'

'– Dean, right – are you sure this isn't just some libido-induced delirium? Because there's nothing wrong with that, if it is. I mean, I fall in lust all the time, and believe me, it is _frequently_ worth it.'

Sighing, Castiel sips his whiskey. 'Gabe, if you laugh, I'm never trusting you again.'

Gabriel holds up a hand. 'On my honour as a Jedi.'

'Fine.' Cas rolls the glass in his hands, obscurely nervous. 'Yes, the sex was good. I mean, it was very, _very_ good. And yes, it's been a while, too, but it wasn't that – it's _why_ it was good in the first place.' He shakes his head, frustrated. 'People talk about good sex like it's this mechanical process, like it's something you should be able to replicate under lab conditions, but try to reduce it down to composite movements, Insert Tab A into Slot B, and all you get is, I don't know, genital Tetris, or a pornographer's Ikea catalogue, and – goddamit, Gabriel, you _promised you wouldn't laugh_!'

His brother is almost choking, whiskey spraying over his lap from a literal spit-take. ' _Genital Tetris_ !' he cackles. 'I'm sorry, Cassie, but Jesus _Christ._ I'm not made of stone!' He wipes his mouth, his good eye bright with merriment. 'More to the point, I'm laughing _with_ you, not _at_ you.' And then, when Castiel still remains silent, 'Oh, don't sulk. I'm listening!'

'I know,' Castiel grouches. 'That's the problem.' He makes a face, and gives in. 'The point being, really good sex is more than the sum of its parts. Like art, in a way. There isn't always a logic to why it works, but when it does, you _know_ – it's personal, alchemical, not something you can mistake. And with Dean, I just... I thought, when I saw him, I thought he was so beautiful, and I know how shallow that sounds, but I kept on thinking it – about _him_ , I mean, him as a person, not him as a body – and I couldn't breathe, Gabe, I woke up next to him and I couldn't _breathe_.'He drops his gaze. 'He felt it, too. Or at least, I thought he did.'

His hands are shaking around the glass, and he can feel Gabe judging him, which, thanks to the peculiarities of their relationship, is simultaneously mortifying and comforting.

'All right,' says Gabriel, after a moment. 'So it was good sex. So you want to see him again, you think he feels the same, and somehow I made that not happen by, what, impugning his honour?'

'Not that,' says Castiel, quietly. 'You triggered him, I think.'

'I _what_?'

'Triggering, it's when –'

'I know what triggering is,' says Gabriel, sharply. 'Explain how it happened here.'

Castiel sucks in breath. 'Everything you said about Dante's, about the people who go there, it's what he thinks of himself. When I said he could stay last night, he asked outright if I wanted to hurt him.' His voice cracks. 'He came here thinking I'd hurt him, Gabriel. Not because he likes pain, but because he thinks he deserves it. I don't know why. I wish I did. But I didn't know how to ask him that, and even if I had done, I didn't have the right.'

'Shit.' Gabriel lowers the ice pack, raises his whiskey, and drinks. 'That is profoundly messed up.'

'I know.'

'Still, I was right about one thing.'

'Oh?'

'He's definitely one of your strays.'

Castiel's head jerks up. 'He is _not_ –'

'Cassie!' Gabriel shoots him an irritated look, wincing as he replaces the ice pack. 'You met him at Dante's, he clearly has issues, and all you've done so far is sit here and rhapsodise about how special he is and how you want to help him. If that's not you investing in a stray, then I don't know what is.' He sighs, and the sting goes out of his tone. 'But that doesn't mean you're wrong to want to try. People have built more from less, after all.' And then he grins, the sly fox-smirk that is quintessentially Gabriel, and says, 'Plus, he's totally hot.'

'Gabriel –' Cas growls warningly.

'What, like I don't have eyes? Stray or not, you're punching above your weight.'

'Gabriel!'

'Does he have a last name?' Gabe asks, the change in topic catching Cas off guard.

'What? Oh. Winchester. Dean Winchester.'

Gabriel nods thoughtfully. 'Well, at least that's something. It would've been much harder to try and track him down if all you had to go on was Dean. I'm assuming, of course, that you never got his number?'

'I didn't,' says Castiel – wary now, because Gabriel's assistance never comes without a price. 'You're really going to help me?'

'Against my better judgement, I'm really going to help you.' Gabriel lifts the ice pack again, eyeing him sternly. 'But only if you come to the clinic with me.'

'There's no need –'

'Castiel.' Gabe sets down his empty glass. 'As touching as I find your romantic idealism, and as much as I'd like to believe your Winchester's sexual history is as pure as the driven snow, Dante's is still the kind of place where you can get hepatitis from the bar mats, so yes, there is a need.' He slaps Cas on the shoulder. 'Now go put some pants on, would you?'

And with that, Gabriel rises, carrying his empty glass into the kitchen. Castiel stays seated, staring at the apartment door, a sudden lump in his throat.

'Gabe?'

'Yeah?'

He turns in his seat, uncertain gaze fixed on his brother. 'What if you find him, and he doesn't want to see me?'

Gabriel is only two years Castiel's senior, but in that moment, his smile is eternal and ageless. 'Then you learn one of life's great lessons, kiddo – that sometimes, the ones you want most don't want you back.'

 


	5. Chapter 5

Dean walks in a daze, the words _whore_ and _stray_ and _broken_ ricocheting through his head like shrapnel. He tries to accept them objectively, as neutral descriptions of himself, no more critically laden than _male_ or _alive_ , but every attempt feels like stabbing himself in the heart. Over and over, he sees the look on Cas's face as he turned and left, and it shouldn't hurt, there's no logical reason why leaving a stranger's house should feel like a betrayal, but it does, and as much of himself as of Castiel. But then, Dean's always been exactly this sort of coward, and exactly this frightened of anyone braver.

If he wasn't, then Aaron would still be alive.

Somehow, he finds his way home, though once he walks through the door, he realises he has no conscious memory of having done so. He locks the door and heads to the kitchen, grabs a beer and sits on the couch, drinking mechanically, barely aware of anything but his own emptiness.

At some point, he turns on the TV, watching without seeing. He doesn't know what time he left Castiel's apartment, how long it took him to get home, or how long after the first beer he finishes the rest of the six pack, but it's twilight by the time he switches to bourbon, and full dark when he passes out on the living room floor, too drunk to manage the ten steps to the bedroom. He sleeps like the dead, and when he finally wakes from a tar-black fugue, it's only because his phone is buzzing madly in his jeans pocket.

Groaning, Dean fumbles it up to his ear and croaks, 'Hello?'

'Dean? Are you OK? You sound awful.' It takes him a moment to place the voice: Charlie, his colleague at the library, where he was due to start work – he squints at the clock on the microwave – an hour ago.

'I feel awful,' he mumbles. 'Think I'm gonna be sick.'

Charlie makes a sympathetic noise. 'Yeah, there's been a flu bug going around. So, I guess you're not going to make it in today?'

He doesn't so much as baulk at the lie. 'Guess not. Sorry, Charlie.'

'Oh, hey, don't be! I can manage just fine – it's not like the place is packed, you know? But we've got that event tomorrow, so if you're still out for the count, can you text me sooner rather than later?'

'Sure.' Dean's head is spinning, his stomach roiling in a way that means he needs to get to the bathroom, fast. 'Ugh. Gotta go. Emergency.'

'Sympathies!' she chirps, her voice cut off as Dean hangs up, slaps his phone on the floor and bolts. He makes it to the toilet just in time, vomiting up everything in his stomach and dry-retching when there's nothing left, his back and sides spasming painfully.

Finally, empty of everything but shame, he flushes the mess, squeezes raw toothpaste into his mouth – his hands are shaking too badly to hold the toothbrush – and swills the worst of the aftertaste away. His pulse is a juddering wreck, his clothes damp with sweat, and lacking any motivation to do otherwise, he lies down on the bathroom floor – curled up, because the space isn't big enough to let him stretch out – and squeezes his eyes shut.

_Whore. Stray. Broken._

He knew this was coming. More than that, he'd actually fucking _wanted_ it, and now he's finally snapped, and it feels like dying. All those times at Dante's, all the ugly things he's done and thought about himself, and somehow, Castiel's kindness – the way he called him beautiful, the way he laughed; god, the _feel_ of him, those brilliant tattoos – is worse than any of it. Which doesn't make any sense, until he flips it around, and when he does, the realisation is awful enough to rip a cry from his throat. It's one thing to degrade himself as routine, but having his choices thrown into contrast – being reminded, body and soul, of exactly how far he's fallen – is something else altogether.

Dean pushes himself upright, sitting back against the bath, and rests his head in his hands. _What the fuck am I so afraid of?_ Boil the problem down to its bones, back before Dante's, before Alistair and his ultimatums, and all these years later, it's still about Aaron, fear of unfair judgement warping into fear of just condemnation. And once upon a time, when he still lived in Kansas, surrounded by people who knew them both (or thought they did), and who would have blamed him at least as furiously as he still blames himself, it made a certain amount of sense. But now? He's turned self-hatred into a fucking _habit_ , and never once stopped to question if he could ever outgrow the cause.

Ten years is a long damn time.

Dean starts to cry, silently at first, but soon in messy, wracking sobs. He doesn't know how to dig himself out of this alone, but he doesn't know how to ask for help, either; and even if he did, who the fuck could he possibly go to? He's spent so long compartmentalising his desires that half the time, he forgets that he is, to all intents and purposes, still closeted. Jesus, not even Sammy knows he's gay – or if his little brother suspects, they've never once discussed it – and it's not like Dean wanted his sexuality to stay secret forever, not really: he just wanted to get out of Kansas, figure it out what it meant for him first, and then Aaron did what he did, and now he's stuck in a box he built at eighteen and locked at twenty-two, and _sorry_ is a key that undoes nothing.

_You don't have to keep apologising for things that aren't your fault._

Castiel had said that to him; Cas, who couldn't possibly know how badly Dean needed to hear it. His stomach lurches, remembering the stricken look on Cas's face as he left the apartment, and all at once, he's hit by a flashback so visceral, it's like being punched, because Aaron had looked at him that way, once, and Dean had ignored it, and then he – and oh, god, fuck, this isn't the same, he _knows_ this isn't the same, but suddenly he's hyperventilating, head between his knees as he tries to breathe, and he was wrong, so wrong, because _this_ is what breaking feels like: the realisation that, after ten years of self-punishment, he's still making exactly the same mistakes, because in all that time, he's never learned anything different.

He can't apologise to Aaron, can't bring him back. But maybe, if he's brave enough, he can explain himself to Cas.

Which will hurt. He knows that. But he's already hurting now, and at this point, there are no pain-free options left.

Dean gets his breathing under control, but it's still a while before he can muster the strength the leave the bathroom. Knowing what he has to do is one thing; actually doing it is another. When, finally, he stumbles into the kitchen, he gulps milk from the carton, trying to ease the acid-burn in his throat. There's an awful moment when he worries it won't stay down, but it does, and he forces himself to eat a slice of leftover pizza, too. It sits in his stomach like a cold, greasy lump, but he feels obscurely better for having it there. Then he retrieves his phone from the floor, shoves it back in his pocket, and steels himself to leave.

He's halfway to the front door when his nerve fails him. Jesus, what the fuck is he thinking – that he'll just walk back to Castiel's place, dump his entire sordid history in the guy's lap, and somehow everything in his life will magically be fixed? _That is some next-level bullshit, Winchester._ But if he doesn't go, then Cas has no way to contact him, and if Cas can't contact him, then Dean has to be the one to try, because otherwise he's still just the asshole who walks out and doesn't look back –

'Oh, god.' He rests a hand on the wall, trembling so violently that he almost sits down again. His vision swims, and it's a solid ten minutes before he can make himself move.

He exits the house, and starts walking.

It's colder today than yesterday, a chill wind whipping against his bare arms. Belatedly, he realises he's still wearing the same, grimy clothes he had on at Dante's, right down to his lack of a jacket, and that's such an awful thought that he very nearly turns around. But if he goes back inside, he knows he won't be able to make himself to leave again, and so he hugs his chest and keeps going, forcing himself to put one foot after the other.

Probably, there's a way to walk to Cas's place that doesn't take him past Dante's. But lacking the foresight to look have looked it up on Google maps, he's reduced to sight navigation, retracing the steps he barely remembers taking. He could've driven, but he doesn't drive in the city, and anyway, he hates his shitty, second-hand junker of a car, which is, like so much else in his life, a longstanding form of punishment. And so he walks the forty minutes that takes him past the club, and the crooked mouth of that awful, anonymous alleyway.

Shame shudders through him on iron rails. He doesn't remember the names of the men he's met there; only what they did to him, or had him do, hard hands and rough brick and, once, a crumpled handful of notes thrown at his feet as he finished, the other man gone before Dean could do himself up and explain that he wasn't for sale. He'd given the money to a homeless woman, and when he got home that night, he drank himself sick, swearing it was the last time, the very last time.

It hadn't been, though.

Eyes stinging, he puts Dante's behind him – physically, if not emotionally – and when it starts to rain, the hard, fat drops like icy bullets, it feels like what he deserves. He's shivering within moments, the downpour soaking him to the skin, but he can't turn back and he can't stop, and so he just keeps walking, numb feet dragging unsteadily.

By the time he reaches Castiel's apartment block, he's painfully chafed from walking in wet clothes, his hands turning blue with cold. Not an inch of him is dry, and as he stumbles up to the door, his teeth are chattering fiercely. He's bedraggled, pathetic – and only then does he realise he can't get through the lobby door without buzzing Cas's apartment first, and what if Cas isn't there, or he doesn't want to see him? Jesus, he's such a fucking idiot, he didn't think any of this through, and there's not even a ledge to shelter him, so he just stands there, too paralyzed to hit the buzzer and too tired to go.

'Oh my goodness, you're soaked!'

He turns, confronted by a fiftysomething woman with a vast umbrella in one hand and a shopping bag in another. Her face is all concern, and before Dean can even process what's happening, she thrusts her groceries into his arms and works her key in the look, popping the umbrella down and herding him into the now-open lobby with uncanny precision.

'S-sorry,' he stammers. 'I, uh, I – m-my friend, I don't know if he's h-home –'

'Never mind that, you can't stay out in this weather!' Pocketing her keys, the woman reclaims her shopping, slipping the handles over her arm and down to the crook of her elbow. 'Now, what floor does your friend live on?'

'P-penthouse,' Dean croaks.

'Oh! You know Castiel?' Her face lights up. 'Such a lovely young man! Well, don't you worry – if he's not in, you can come and dry off in my flat. I'm in 4B. You can't possibly sit around in those wet things; you'll catch your death.' She gives him a comforting pat on the arm and heads briskly to the lifts, and Dean, too stunned to do otherwise, follows. The doors slide open the second his unlikely rescuer hits the button, and it's only once they're both on their way up that Dean recovers enough to mumble, 'Thank you.'

The lift dings open at the fourth floor. 'Don't mention it!' the woman says, smiling warmly as she exits. 'Now, you remember – 4B!'

Dean nods, and then the woman is gone from sight, and he's on his way back up.

By the time he exits on Castiel's floor, he's dripped a veritable pool of water onto the floor of the lift – enough that he feels he should mop it up, somehow, in case someone slips and falls. But that's hardly an option, so he stumbles out, and there's Cas's door, and _oh, god, I can't do this, I can't, I can't –_

He raises his hand, and knocks. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to bettydays for her excellent feedback on this chapter!

If Castiel had ever needed proof that being tested for STDs in the company of one's older brother was just as embarrassing an experience in one's twenties as in one's teens, then yesterday would have provided it in spades. The fact that he still had to wait for most of the results hadn't stopped Gabriel from buying him ice cream to celebrate the tests he did pass, and only Castiel's profound love of honey and butterscotch had stopped him from refusing the treat on principle.

Afterwards, Gabe dropped him home, and said, in a more sincere tone than he'd used in hours, 'I really am sorry, Cassie.'

'I know,' said Castiel. He managed a smile and saw Gabe out, and spent the rest of the evening eating cereal from the box and watching reruns of _Star Trek: Voyager_.

This morning, he'd woken from dreams he couldn't remember, but which had nonetheless left him half-hard and yearning, fingers itching for his brush. The latter feeling, at least, he could do something about, and so he pulled on his most comfortable pair of black, paint-spattered jeans, made himself an extra-strong cup of coffee, and went straight into the studio. Five hours later, and he's still there, his cheeks, arms and torso smudged with oils, the half-finished painting before him the most ambitious project he's attempted in months. He stands away, staring at what he's achieved so far, only belatedly aware of how hungry he is, of the cramping pain in his hands and back. He swipes a wrist across his forehead, trying to decide whether he should press on for another hour or take a break, and that's when he hears the knock.

 _Gabriel_ , he thinks, and lets out a sigh. Still, it's better timing than his brother exhibited yesterday, and just for a moment, he feels that pang at Dean's leaving all over again.

Then he wipes his hands on a rag, removes a stray paintbrush from behind his ear, and goes to answer the door.

'You'd better have brought lunch, Gabe,' he says, turning the handle, 'because I –'

He chokes into silence, overwhelmed, because there's Dean, Dean is right there on his doorstep, and he's a fucking _mess_ , drenched and shivering and blue with cold, and a look on his face like he half expects Cas to send him straight back outside, and oh, god –

'Dean,' he breathes, and hauls him into the apartment by a shirtfront so icy and sodden, even gripping it makes Castiel's fingers ache. The door swings shut of its own accord, and Dean's teeth are chattering so hard, he can barely speak.

'Cas, I – I n-needed, I'm s-s–'

'Don't you _dare_ ,' whispers Castiel, 'apologise,' and crushes their mouths together. Dean makes a sound that's somewhere between a moan and a whimper, and he's so fucking cold, it's almost painful to hold him. Cas pulls back, rubbing his hands along Dean's arms, his warm touch leaving livid orange-purple streaks on skin the colour of winter. Dean's cheeks are flushed, and Cas feels an irrational stab of panic.

'Jesus, we need to get you warm. OK? You're getting into the shower right now.'

Dean just nods, incapable of speech, and Cas puts an arm around his shoulders and helps him into the bathroom, letting the taps run hot as he strips Dean out of his things. Which is no mean feat: they've practically adhered to him, his skin rubbed raw from contact with the icy fabric. Cas tries to be gentle, but Dean hisses with discomfort all the same. Even his socks are soaked, the leather of his boots – which, thankfully, lack laces – a good three shades darker than normal. Slipping out of his jeans, Cas tests the shower's temperature, which is just this side of scalding, and turns back to Dean.

'This is probably going to sting,' he says, 'but you need to do it.'

'I know.' It comes out a rasp. There are dark circles under his eyes, and he looks like hell, and he's still so unspeakably beautiful that he almost hurts to look at.

Gently, Cas puts his arms around Dean, and leads him into the shower.

The second the water hits him, Dean gasps. He clings to Cas, face buried in his shoulder, and Cas just holds him, rubs soothing circles over his muscles, runs his fingers through Dean's hair. Dean shudders against him, shoulders hitching under his hands, and that's when Castiel realises he's crying. He pulls back, cups Dean's face in his hands, and brings their foreheads together.

'Dean, it's OK. It's all right, I promise it's all right –' he kisses him, a light brush of lips, but Dean chases his mouth, catches it, strong hands braced on Cas's hips as he licks into him, and everything else falls away. The water is warm, but everywhere their bodies touch, Castiel is on fire. He laces their fingers together, and when Dean thumbs a pattern on the back of his hand, it feels like he's been branded. He leans in and kisses Dean's eyelids, cheeks, jaw, his mouth moving steadily lower, kissing along his throat and shoulders, down across his chest, ribs, hips, until he's kneeling before him, mouthing at the lean muscle of his thighs. He looks up at him, drinking in the breathless awe on Dean's face, and swallows him down, hands stroking possessively at every bit of skin he didn't kiss, blinking water out of his eyes as he keeps his head up, watching Dean watch him.

'Cas,' Dean says, brokenly, one palm braced on the shower wall as the other tangles in Castiel's hair. 'Oh god, Cas, you –' He breaks off, groaning as Cas takes him deep in his throat, those green eyes flickering open and shut in almost despairing pleasure. Castiel has given his share of blowjobs, but he's never been so aroused by the act as he is with Dean, unable to keep from moaning his own enjoyment as he licks and laves and sucks. A half-second before Dean comes, his eyes widen, and Cas swallows greedily, not pulling off until he feels the other man start to go soft.

Castiel straightens, smiling. The second he's upright, Dean twines his arms around his neck and draws him close, kissing him with such demanding passion that Cas quite literally forgets to breathe. It's only when Dean reaches down to stroke him that he breaks away, gasping, hips stuttering as he thrusts into Dean's fist.

'Come for me, Cas,' Dean murmurs, kissing up the side of his neck, and whether it's the touch of his lips or the words or both, Cas is helpless to disobey: he comes hard and fast, knees weakening as he slumps against Dean, and he's not sure which of them them is supporting the other; only that, in that moment, neither one could stand alone.

Cas laughs softly, nuzzling Dean's throat. 'Warmer now?' he asks.

'A little,' Dean admits, and then there's a pause as he sucks in breath. 'Cas, I – what happened yesterday, I need to explain –' he strokes along Cas's jaw and lifts, forcing him to meet his gaze, '– and you might hate me for it, because _I_ hate me for it, but if you do, it's OK, and I just, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry –'

Castiel shuts him up with a kiss. 'I won't hate you,' he says, finally pulling back.

'You don't know that.'

'I have my suspicions.' And then, thumbing affectionately across Dean's cheek, 'Come tell me in bed.'

Dean drops his gaze. 'OK,' he says, after a moment.

Quietly, they get out of the shower. Cas wraps Dean in the bigger towel, then picks up Dean's wet things, sets his phone and wallet aside, and shoves the clothes in the washing machine, absently drying himself as he goes.

'You don't have to do that –' Dean begins, but falls silent at the look Cas shoots him.

'One, your clothes are soaked.' He shuts the machine and starts the cycle. 'And two, you can't run out on me again if you're naked.'

Dean gives a shaky laugh. 'Not even if you want me to?'

Cas pauses, taking in the grief in Dean's eyes, and for half a heartbeat, he contemplates the idea that he really has done something terrible; something Castiel couldn't forgive, like rape or murder. Rationally – and it's both ironic and deeply disturbing that this particular mental voice sounds like Gabriel – he has no real reason to trust him. After all, Cas doesn't know Dean.

Except that, in some impossible, unfathomable way, he does. And maybe that makes him a hopeless, naïve romantic, and maybe he's about to have his heart broken spectacularly – because it will hurt, he can almost _taste_ how much it will hurt, if Dean confesses to being a monster – but Castiel doesn't believe it for a second, because monsters don't ruin themselves with penance, don't run from kindness like it's a weapon on which they've already bled; don't show up at your door, shaking and frozen half to death, and warm within your arms.

 _Or at least, you hope they don't,_ says the Gabriel-voice.

Out loud, Castiel says, 'I don't want you to leave, Dean. I just want to understand.'

Together, they walk to the bedroom. The sheets are still mussed from Castiel's rising, but Dean climbs in without hesitation, curling into Cas's arms, head pillowed trustingly on his chest, and how could something that feels this right be wrong? Cas breathes in the scent of him, one hand rising to tug up the covers. Outside, the rain is still falling, the sound soothing in its steadiness. The light through the window is silver-grey, and for a perfect moment, there's nothing but this: the puff of Dean's breath on his tattoos, the falling rain, and the warming press of shower-clean skin between his favourite sheets.

Then, with quiet inevitability, Dean begins to speak.

'I'm not out. I never meant lie about it, not forever, but after a while, it just... No. That's not right. That's not it.' He takes a deep breath, eyes slipping closed, as though it's easier that way. 'I grew up in Kansas. Small town, pretty much how you'd imagine. My mom died when I was four. Complications from having my brother. Eclampsia, or something like that. Dad did his best with us, but it was hard on him, and looking back, I think that's why he was so obsessed with raising us to be real men's men, you know? For a long time, I didn't understand it, but losing mom destroyed part of him, and I think he thought that meant he was weak, like if he'd just been strong enough, he'd never have loved her so much in the first place. And I was the oldest, so I had to lead by example. Had to be strong for dad, strong for Sammy.

'But I never got it right. Even when I was little, there'd be things I wanted, things I'd say, and dad would just _look_ at me sometimes, like I was this...' He trails away, and Castiel hugs him close, and after a moment, he starts up again. 'Eventually, I figured out I liked men. And even with where we lived, and with dad, I knew it wasn't wrong, or bad; I just knew I couldn't tell anyone, because maybe _they'd_ think it was, and dad would end up hurt all over again. And I told myself, I thought, if I don't think about it, if I just pretend, then I can grow up and get away, go live my real life somewhere else, all I have to do is survive this part. And nearly, I nearly did it.

'Except there was this guy at school. Aaron. He was dorky and smart and he made me laugh, and we'd never really hung out before senior year, but suddenly he was in all my classes, and I couldn't – he was everywhere, and I was so fucking lonely, and I still don't know how it happened, because neither of us were out, it's not like we even suspected, but we got drunk one night, and we just... but it had to be secret. And that was fine at first – we were friends, we had classes and clubs together, nobody ever questioned us hanging out – but when we came back from break, he was... different. He wanted to go public, and I told him, I _told_ him, over and over, I couldn't, it would kill my dad, but he kept asking, he got angry and sad, and we started fighting, and I was such a jackass about it, I started flirting with girls when he was around, I'd say these things, I, I –' His muscles lock up, and Castiel gentles him, soothing with his hands, until Dean shudders and speaks again.

'My dad was a mechanic. He loved classic cars, and ours was this Chevy Impala, 1967. It was everything to him. He barely trusted me to wash it, let alone anything else, but Aaron was so angry, I wanted to do something, I wanted to show him I cared, even if I _couldn't_ show it, not the way he wanted. And dad was away on a fishing trip – real backwoods stuff, so he left the car, he didn't want it getting scratched up, he didn't know I'd copied the keys, and I took them to Aaron, he'd always wanted to drive it, and I'd meant to go with him, but he was so mad, he started yelling at me, telling me how stupid it was for us to keep hiding, and how come I'd risk getting in trouble with dad over a stupid car, but not for him? And I said – oh, god –' his voice cracks, '– I said, _because at least the car's worth it_. And then I walked out, and I left the keys, and he tried to give them back, but I told him to keep them, take a joyride on me.'

Dean's voice is rough with grief. 'He went out and wrapped it around a tree. Straight bit of road, but it was dark, windy, and everyone knew he'd never driven it before. He died on impact.'

Cas pulls him closer, kissing the top of Dean's head. It's an awful story, and part of him is angry, but not at Dean. 'How old were you?' he asks, softly.

'Eighteen. Old enough to know better.' Dean looks up at him, and his eyes are red. 'There was an inquest into his death. Accident or misadventure, that was the verdict, which is a fancy way of saying they couldn't prove it was suicide. His parents knew he'd been feeling off, but not why, and I was his friend, I had to get up and answer questions, and I _lied_ , Cas, I lied at the fucking inquest, I said he'd been happy I'd leant him the car, that I wanted to do something fun for him, because he was stressed about school. Something _nice_.' He chokes back a sob, and Cas can feel tears on his ribs.

'Dean, it wasn't your fault.'

'He killed himself because of me. How is that not my fault?'

'Two reasons.' Cas strokes his hair, the movement soothing both of them. 'Firstly, because you don't even know he _did_ kill himself. Like you said, it was dark, windy. He might have been angry and hurt, but that doesn't mean he wanted to die. He could've just lost control. And secondly, even if it was suicide, that's on him, not you. It's tragic and terrible and, yes, maybe you said some awful things, but you were both just young and scared and angry. You don't deserve to suffer forever because of that.' He pauses, and something Dean said earlier suddenly clicks into place. 'That's why you've never come out, isn't it? Aaron wanted you to, and you wouldn't for him, so you didn't think you deserved it for yourself.'

Dean's answer is barely audible. 'Something like that.'

Cas considers this answer. Carefully, he says, 'There's more, isn't there.'

Dean doesn't speak; just nods against his chest.

'Tell me.'

For a moment, Dean is silent. Then, softly, he says, 'My dad loved that car. When he came back, heard what had happened, he was furious. Wouldn't speak to me for days. I still don't know what made him angrier, that Aaron had totalled the car, or that he'd died doing it. Either way, he blamed me for both, and being in the house with him, it was like diving underwater. All this pressure building up, you could feel it, taste it. He started drinking again – I mean, he always drank after mom, but he got worse. A lot worse. He didn't come to the inquest with me, but I left early for it, and he was already hitting the hard stuff then. I knew he'd be drunk as hell when I got back, and I tried, I really tried to keep it together afterwards, but then I got home, and I started having a panic attack in the kitchen, and when dad came in and saw me like that, he just... snapped.'

Cas feels his stomach twist. 'Snapped how?' he asks, but deep down, he already knows.

Dean's voice is flat, bleak. 'Snapped as in he beat eight kinds of shit out of me. I mean, he'd hit me before, but that was just cuffs, lovetaps. This was something else. I woke up in hospital three days later, and there's this policeman sitting by the bed waiting to hear my version of events, because Sammy was in emergency foster care and dad was in custody, and neither one of them would say what had happened. I mean, Sam came home and found dad sitting over me, so he didn't know anything for sure, and dad just clammed up. So that left me. And I figured, well, I deserved it for killing Aaron, and I was so beat up, it's not like I could've looked after Sammy on my own – not straight away, at least, and damned if I was leaving him in the system – and anyway, I'd already lied once and gotten away with it, so why not do it again, right? So I told them, I said, I was so upset by the inquest that I came home and picked a fight with dad, that I lost it and attacked him and that everything he did was in self-defence, including pushing me down the stairs.'

'Oh, Jesus. _Dean_.' Cas can't keep the horror from his voice. 'And they believed you?'

'They had to,' he says, simply. 'I mean, the cops must've known I was lying about some of it, and the doctors sure as hell did, but they didn't know who'd started it, and Sammy was a popular kid, you know, nobody wanted to see him taken away. So they let it slide. Dad came home, I healed up, and that was it. We never talked about it again, not once before he died. But we all knew what he'd done.' He swallows. 'Cas, I broke my family. I ruined everything.'

'No,' says Cas, fiercely, 'no, no, you didn't, you _didn't_ ,' and pulls them both upright, kissing Dean furiously, fingers digging into his arms, needing him to understand that _it wasn't your fault, none of this was your fault, your father taught you guilt and fear and it's all on him,_ and Dean kisses back with a sob, shaking violently in Castiel's arms.

And then he pulls away, sharp and sudden, eyes wild as he stares at Cas like he doesn't know what's happening. 'Cas,' he says, and it comes out strangled, 'you – I – you don't understand, everything I touch, I hurt everyone, I walked out on you like I walked out on Aaron, and since he died, the only real relationship I've had was with a married man, Alistair; I was his secret, I was –' he's crying now, tears streaming down his cheeks, '– god, I really was a whore, I told myself I wasn't but he'd give me things, he'd tell me what to do, what to wear, and then one day he just, he found someone else, and I didn't – I'm so fucked up, Cas, I'm broken, I'm a stray, your brother was right, you don't want me, you don't, you –'

'I want you,' Cas says, cutting him off. Dean pales, and Cas puts a hand to his cheek, thumbing gently across the bone. 'Dean, listen to me. You're not a whore, you're not a stray, you're not broken. _You're not broken_ , OK? You're beautiful.' He leans in and kisses the edge of his mouth. 'God, you are so beautiful. Inside and out.' He kisses his jaw. 'And funny.' His mouth trails down Dean's throat. 'And sweet.' He sucks on Dean's pulse point, and is instantly rewarded with hitched breath, a stifled groan. 'You're an amazing lover.' His hands slide up Dean's ribs, teeth grazing against his collarbone, then back up again to nip his ear. ' _So_ amazing,' he breathes, 'it's like you have a map to me, and I want, very much –' he sucks the lobe into his mouth, and Dean's bitten-off whimper is barely louder than the rain, '– to make a map of you.'

Dean shivers and moans, panting as Castiel bites his shoulder and pushes him back against the pillows, rutting against him in long, slow strokes. Lifting his mouth, Cas twines their fingers together, pinning Dean with his gaze as expertly as he pins his hands above his head. Dean's breathing is laboured, green eyes glazed, and this time, as Cas leans in and kisses his ear, he murmurs, 'Do you want this?'

Dean's answer comes on a shaky exhale, the words at one with his breath. ' _God, yes_.'

Something twists through Castiel, a possessive thrill so closely entwined with his need to make Dean love himself, they're practically one and the same. He looks at Dean, _into_ him, and brushes their lips together, and murmurs, 'Then tell me you're beautiful.'

Dean freezes, eyes going wide with shock. 'What?'

'Tell me you're beautiful.' Cas flexes gently against his palms and dips his head, planting a lingering kiss on the edge of Dean's jaw. 'Say it. Just once. Say, _I am beautiful_.'

'Cas, please, I'm not, I –'

'You are.' He smiles down at him, calm and controlled. 'You might not believe it now, but if we're going to keep doing this –' he rolls his hips, and Dean gasps, his erection hot against Cas's thigh, '– then I want to know that you're going to try. So.' He leans in and kisses him, long and deep, until Dean is practically writhing against him. 'What are you?'

'B-beautiful.' The word is barely audible, and yet Dean's whole face flushes crimson. They're both trembling, and Cas wants him so badly, he can barely think straight, but he knows Dean needs this, that it's something he can give.

'Mmm,' he says, sucking a hickey onto Dean's throat. 'The full phrase, please.'

Dean shudders and gasps. 'I'm beautiful,' he says, and then, 'Cas, fuck, please fuck me, please, god –'

Cas lets go of his hands and licks into his mouth, and Dean's response is instantaneous: he buries his hands in Castiel's hair and pulls him closer, kissing back so hard, it's almost bruising. Pulse hammering, Cas stretches out blindly and somehow grabs the lube from the nightstand, slicking a generous quantity onto his fingers and reaching between them just as Dean lifts up and wraps his legs around Cas's back.

' _Fuck_ ,' Cas groans, and slips a finger inside him. He tries to go slowly, but Dean is having none of it: he runs his tongue over the shell of Castiel's ear and pants, ' _More_ , Cas,' and keeps on saying it until Cas adds a second finger, and then a third, scissoring him open.

'Now,' Dean says, his eyes wide with lust, 'Cas, fuck, get in me, I need you, need you in me, baby, come in me, fuck, I want –' he kisses him desperately, sucking hard on his lower lip, and Castiel makes an obscene noise like this is simultaneously the first and best sex he's ever had, and slides into Dean before his fingers are even fully out, a confluence that has them both gasping.

And then Dean locks his ankles in place, hands digging into Castiel's back he hisses, ' _Move_ ,' and Cas bottoms out and starts to fuck him, a flurry of hard, controlled strokes that has them both near to screaming. They half-kiss, fast and messy, every inch of bare skin claimed by shared salt-sweat and ragged breath, pushing against and into each other, completely lost to anything else, and Cas can't look away from him, drowning in Dean's stupidly green eyes. He can feel his orgasm building in him like waves, a sinuous, electric ripple curling through muscle, nerve, bone, and the praise falls from his tongue like pebbles from a landslide.

'You're beautiful, so fucking beautiful, Dean, I'm going to –'

'– come in me, Cas, please come –'

'Dean, I –'

They both come at once, Dean untouched and Cas with an inarticulate cry, hips rocking them reflexively through the aftershocks, arms trembling with the effort of having held himself up. The second he pulls out, he collapses against Dean, panting into the skin of his throat, so utterly satiated, he almost falls asleep on the spot. Dean tips his head back, shaky fingers carding through the mess of Cas's hair, and says, with the sort of quiet, emphatic reverence usually reserved for viewings of the Sistine Chapel, 'Sweet holy _god_.'

Cas chuckles into his chest, and somehow finds the strength to stretch up for a kiss. 'And you were worried I'd kick you out.'

'I was?' Dean asks, quite breathlessly confused. And then, more tentatively, 'Cas?'

'Mmm?'

'That was good, right? I mean, better than average?'

'Dean,' says Cas, tongue flicking playfully at his nipple, 'that wasn't just _good_ . It was fucking _revelatory_.' He lifts his head, raising a puzzled eyebrow. 'You honestly need me to tell you that?'

'No! Yes. Maybe. I mean –' he sucks in breath, cheeks turning pink, '– it's just, I don't exactly have a good yardstick for, uh, non-self-hating sex. For all I know, it always feels like this, when you're not getting done in alleys.'

'Well, it doesn't,' Cas says. And then, when Dean still looks uncertain, he trails his fingertips along his jaw and says, the honesty catching in his throat, 'It's never been like that before.'

'Oh,' says Dean. A small, shy smile creeps across his face. After a moment, though, he shifts, and Cas gets the distinct impression there's something Dean wants to ask, but doesn't feel he can.

'Dean? What is it?'

'Nothing,' he says – too quickly, and he knows it.

Cas raises an eyebrow. 'Are you sure?'

Dean swallows, suddenly nervous. 'I just, ah, I was wondering... are you a dom?'

Cas opens his mouth. Shuts it again. 'Why do you ask?' he says, finally.

Though flustered, Dean's answer is careful. 'You take control, but not just for you. What you had me say, how you did it, that was... you pushed me, but I felt safe. Like you were following rules.' He hesitates, ducking his gaze. 'I liked that.'

Slow warmth spreads through Castiel's chest. 'I've been a dom, yes, but not for a while. Or I am one, rather, but not all the time. Um.' He runs a hand through his hair, trying to explain. 'Years ago, I had a partner who was into the scene, and after we'd slept together a few times, she mentioned, offhand, that I acted like a dom in bed, and did I want to learn more about it. I didn't see any reason why not, and to my surprise, it... fitted. Apparently, I was – am – rather good at it. But after we broke up, I didn't like the idea that it had to define me, either in terms of who I approached romantically, or what I expected from sex. So I just... stored it away, I suppose, as something to draw on. Some partners liked it. Others didn't.' He shrugs, as though it really is a part of himself he can take or leave, and ignores his inner Gabriel-voice, which is reminding him pointedly about his apparent penchants for both _passion_ and _repression_.

'Oh,' says Dean again, and licks his lips.

Heart in mouth, Cas asks, as carefully as he knows how, 'Do you – is that something you think you might want from me?'

Dean almost groans his answer. 'Christ, _yes_.'

'Why?'

'Because,' he says – and stops, frowning. For a horrible moment, Cas thinks he's going to change his mind; but no, Dean's simply thinking his answer through. 'Because,' he repeats – and this time, his voice shakes a little, 'I think I need it. Not just because of how good that felt; because it helped, too. Because I trust you to help me. And I – after everything, I think I do need help. Rules, and trust, and a way to make sense of everything. I always, even before I started going to Dante's, I always wanted to let go, but I didn't know how, and I did it all wrong, I thought it just meant hurting myself, and by the time I realised there was a difference, I was so far gone, I figured I didn't deserve the real thing.' He flicks his gaze up, suddenly beseeching. 'Cas? Is that OK? Because you don't, I mean, if you don't want to –'

'I want to,' Cas says, dizzy and damn near breathless with the possibilities. 'God, do I want to.'

This time, Dean's smile is brighter than dawn, and Castiel kisses him deeply, greedily, until they both fall back on the pillows, and sleep.

 


	7. Chapter 7

Dean wakes to the gentle drumming of rain. Tuning within the warm nest of blankets, he reaches for Cas, but finds himself alone. A pang goes through his chest, the fear of abandonment too deep-seated to be waylaid by anything so rational as the fact that this is Castiel's house. Forcing the worry aside, Dean blinks and sits up, trying and failing to guess the time. There's no clock that he can see, and the bedroom is cast in shades of grey, the outside world reduced to gloaming. Dean doesn't know if it's dawn or evening: only that he feels a little feverish, a rasp in the back of his throat. He is also, coincidentally, starving – whatever time it is, he started Saturday by throwing up, and all he's eaten since then is a bit of pizza and a half-glass of milk.

Mindful of the sticky state in which he fell asleep, he rises and snags the spare robe from the back of the door, padding quietly across to the bathroom. There, he finds his newly-dried clothes folded neatly on the bench, his phone and wallet set nearby. Like waking alone, part of him can't help but view the courtesy as encouragement to leave, and he has to remind himself, again, that Castiel asked him to stay. To prove the point to himself, he takes his time getting clean, and when he finally does get dressed, he finds that his things are still warm. Only then does he check his phone, surprised to learn that it's just a little before 5PM, Saturday. He also has two new texts from Charlie: the first a wish that he get well soon, and the second asking whether he'll be in tomorrow. Guiltily, Dean pockets it without answering. Despite Cas's tender ministrations, his walk in the freezing rain clearly hasn't done him any good, and when he feels goosebumps rise on his arms, he pulls the robe on over his clothes, just for the extra warmth.

'Cas?' he calls, heading into the studio. 'Are you – oh.'

Dean stops short, mouth hanging open a little as he takes in the view; which is to say, admires the sight of Castiel, dressed in nothing but the same black, paint-splashed jeans he was wearing earlier, as he works on a new canvass. A chunky pair of cordless headphones renders him both deaf to Dean's approach and even more tousle-haired than usual, and when combined with the taut, tattooed musculature of his shoulders and the streaks of paint on his neck and hands, the effect is somewhere between illegal and downright incendiary.

Unable to resist, Dean sneaks up behind him and plants a lingering, deliberate kiss on the bare skin of his spine, laughing out loud when Cas yelps and turns, completely caught off-guard.

'Dean!' he exclaims, blushing as he fumbles the headphones down around his neck. There's paint on Cas's cheek, too, a plum-coloured stripe that edges into his stubble, and as Dean follows the line of it downwards, he takes a moment to appreciate, not just Castiel's tattoos, but the well-defined pecs and stomach beneath them, sharp hipbones jutting up above the low line of his jeans. He's staring unashamedly, and he doesn't care, because holy mother of god, who _wouldn't_?

Cas smirks, gaze flicking over Dean in turn. 'See something you like, or just browsing?'

'Depends,' says Dean. Breathless with his own bravery, he hooks his fingers through the loops of Cas's jeans and tugs him closer. 'What does browsing get me?'

Feigning seriousness, Castiel flourishes his brush and flicks the tip along Dean's chin, leaving behind a tacky streak of blue paint. 'This,' he says, gravely – and then his composure breaks, his features crinkling into a grin as drops the brush, cups Dean's face in his paint-daubed palms and kisses him soundly. Dean moans and pulls Cas closer, fingers sliding up to stroke along his hips. It's been a long damn while since anyone took the time to kiss him properly – or, come to that, since he took the time to kiss them – but even without the element of abstinence-induced need, Cas is good enough to set off fireworks. When they finally break apart, Dean's pulse is pounding.

'Hello,' he says, dazedly.

Cas smiles. 'Hello to you, too. Did you sleep well? You looked like you needed it.'

'I did, yeah. On both counts.' He cranes his head to look at the canvass. 'What are you working on?'

'Oh! It's just, um –' Cas waves a hand, shrugging abashedly as he steps aside. 'Just an idea I had. It's not finished, though.'

Dean stares at the painting, overawed. 'Cas,' he says, 'that isn't _just_ anything.'

The painting is bruise-hued, blues and blacks and purples balanced by faint, dirty yellows and storm-sky greens. Seen from behind, two naked, androgynous figures emerge from a cave that opens onto a nightlit field. One lies belly-down, their legs and lower torso disappearing into dark, hungry smoke, an arm flung desperately up and out to brush the raised heel of the other. It's the second figure, though, who arrests the eye: they're half-in, half-out of the cave, blindfolded eyes turned back towards their fellow, the toes of one foot barely touching the ground as their wide, impossible wings extend to raise them up – impossible, because they're not really wings. They're lyres, or harps, or something like that, their muscle-frames edged with oilslick feathers, stray plumes falling between taut strings whose lower ends fray into lightning. It's eerie, surreal and wholly beautiful, and even though he's looking right at it, Dean still can't figure out how Cas has managed to make the instrument-wings look as real as they are. They're like Escher puzzles in oils, and so arresting he almost reaches out to touch them, wanting to map their lines.

Luckily for the still-wet paint, he stops himself in time.

'You like it?' Cas asks, a note of hesitation in his voice.

Dean smiles, stepping up to drop a kiss on Castiel's cheek. 'It's incredible. How did you get the wings to look like that?'

'You mean technically, or –?'

'I mean, how did you know it would even work? What made you think of it?'

Cas laughs, the sound at once both pleased and self-conscious; he goes to rub the back of his neck and ends up pulling his headphones off instead, turning them over in his hands. 'I didn't, not really. I couldn't remember my dreams last night, but I woke up feeling like loss and storms and oracles, and it made me think of Orpheus and Euridyce, and the image just flowed out.'

 _Loss and oracles_ , Dean thinks, and feels a twist in his gut that's half at the poetry of it, and half from guilt, that maybe Cas felt that way because of him. Out loud, he asks, 'Orpheus and Euridyce?'

'It's a Greek myth,' says Cas. 'Orpheus was a musician, and Euridyce was his wife. When she died, he went to the underworld to beg Hades for her return. His music was so beautiful, the god agreed to let her go, but only on the condition that Orpheus not look at her until they were back in the mortal world. He lead Euridyce right to the edge, but at the last moment, he forgot his promise and turned to make sure she was following. He lost her forever. This is... a different interpretation, I suppose.' He ducks his head, setting the headphones down on his desk and fiddling with a nearby iPad, presumably the source of whatever music he was listening to. 'Will you have dinner with me?' he asks, suddenly, before Dean can comment on the myth. 'I mean, stay for dinner?'

Dean blushes. 'I'd love to. I'm actually starving.'

'In that case, want to order takeout? I was going to cook, but –' Cas stops, interrupted by a sudden loud burst of music coming from the bookshelf. He groans, and after a moment, Dean realises why: the song is a tinny, ringtone version of Lamb's My Angel Gabriel, which can really only mean one thing. He raises an eyebrow at the choice, trying to disguise his sudden nervousness. 'Really?'

Cas makes a face and grabs for his phone. 'My _delightful_ brother programmed in custom rings for everyone in my contacts list over Christmas, then set up a password so I couldn't change them back.' Eyes rolling, he answers the call. 'Impeccable timing as always, Gabe.'

The speaker is on loud enough that Gabriel's reply is clearly audible. 'Don't you sass me, Cassie. I'm not in the mood.' He sounds harassed, and there's car noise in the background. 'Look, I know I said I'd help find Dean, but I've had an absolute shit of a day, and as such, I'm invoking my fraternal right to come over and bitch about it until I want to kill myself slightly less, OK? I'll be there in ten, and yes, I'm bringing Chinese.'

Cas's mouth hangs open. 'Gabriel, that's not exactly –'

'Great! Grab a cold one for me, willya?' And then he hangs up, leaving Castiel staring at the phone in his hand like it's personally betrayed him.

'Um,' he says.

Reflexively, Dean hunches in on himself. Maybe waking up alone and finding his clothes was a sign, after all. 'It's all right,' he says, proud of how calm he sounds. 'I can go, let you guys catch up.'

'No!' Cas's eyes blaze blue. 'I want you to stay. Gabriel can go fuck a hedgehog.'

The image is so absurd, Dean snorts despite himself. 'Cas, no. It's fine, really –'

'It is _not_ fine.' He squeezes Dean's arm. 'He shouldn't have said what he said yesterday, not any of it. It was wrong of him.'

Dean shakes his head, chest tight. His first instinct is to run, but he can't do that without upsetting Cas, and even though Gabriel is a grade-A dick, it goes against every fibre in his being to get between family, or to fault an elder brother for protecting a younger. 'No, it wasn't. What he said, it hurt like hell, I won't pretend it didn't, but he was scared for you, and it's not like he was wrong about Dante's, not really.' _Or about me._

'Dean –'

'He said he was going to help you find me?' he asks, cutting Castiel off.

Cas blushes slightly. 'He did. After you left, we had a conversation. I was... persuasive.'

'Well, then.' Dean forces himself to smile, back straight, as though he's not breaking out in a cold sweat. _Come on, Winchester. You can do this. Besides,_ _he's bringing food_. 'We're all adults, right? We can eat together.' And then, at the astonished look on Castiel's face, 'He's your _brother_ , Cas. I'm not thrilled with the guy, but I'm not going to make you choose between us, either.'

Castiel stares at him. 'You're sure about this?'

 _No._ 'Yes.'

Moving slowly, Castiel slips his arms around Dean's waist, hands moving beneath the robe and the hem of his shirt to trace warm patterns on his back. Leaning in, he kisses his jaw and murmurs, 'You're incredible, you know that?'

Dean flushes at the praise. 'Cas, c'mon, it's not a big deal.'

'Don't lie to me.' He kisses his ear and pulls back, putting them eye to eye. 'If Gabriel crosses the line, if he makes you uncomfortable at all, he's out. Being my brother doesn't exempt him from common courtesy. Do you trust me?'

'I trust you.' It comes out raspier than he intends, and then he starts coughing, wet and throaty. 'Shit. Sorry. Don't want to get you sick, too.'

Concerned, Cas pats his sides and pulls the robe snugly over Dean's torso, knotting it in place. 'I've got some stuff in the kitchen that might help. Come on.' He leads the way, and as Dean follows, he says, over his shoulder, 'You should probably rest up tomorrow, take it easy.'

Dean laughs. 'Wish I could, but I already missed work today. Can't really afford to do it again.'

'Work? But it's the weekend – oh. The library?'

'Yeah.' Dean smiles, touched that Cas remembered – which, seconds later, gives him the courage to add, 'Actually, there's an event on tomorrow. Some local author's launching a new book. It's not much, but there'll be food, drinks. You could come, maybe, if you wanted. I mean, I'll be working, but –'

'I'd love to,' says Cas, eyes crinkling as he smiles.

As Dean takes a seat at the kitchen island, texting Charlie to let her know that he's on board for Sunday, Cas rummages through his drawers, producing a bottle of Vitamin C, some cold and flu tablets, and a bottle of cough syrup.

'Here,' he says, pushing them all towards Dean, along with a glass of water. 'It's not much, but it should help.'

'Hey, it's more than I've got at home,' says Dean, and helps himself to the appropriate dosage of all three. 'Thanks, Cas.'

'No problem.' He smiles, leaning his elbows on the island. 'It's what boyfriends do.'

The word brings Dean up short. He blinks, considering the idea. 'Is that what we are?' he asks, after a moment. 'Boyfriends?'

Castiel looks surprised. 'If there's another term you prefer –'

'No, no. It's fine.' Dean smiles, but shakily, rubbing his arms. 'It's just new to me, is all. There's not much point in having a word for what you are to someone when the whole thing's secret, you know?'

'Because you're not out,' says Cas, understanding. And then, in a tone of dawning comprehension, 'You've never done this before, have you?'

'Done what?'

'This. Dinner. Family.' He waves a hand to indicate the door and, by extension, Gabriel's imminent arrival. 'Eating with a _boyfriend_ –' a gentle emphasis, '– and someone who knows you're dating.'

'No,' says Dean, slowly. 'I guess I haven't.'

The realisation leaves him feeling strangely hollow. It's such a simple, mundane thing, but somehow, that makes the fact that he's never done it all the more wrenching. _God, I'm so fucking pathetic, it's no wonder –_

Dean jerks in surprise, glancing up as Castiel slides his warm palms over the backs of his hands. 'And that's fine, Dean. There's nothing wrong with it.'

Helplessly, Dean says, 'You could have anyone you want, Cas. You shouldn't have to babysit me through Relationships 101.'

Cas smiles, his expression both soft and teasing. 'And what if I want to babysit you through Relationships 101?'

'Cas –'

'Dean.' He squeezes his hands. 'I want this. I want _you_.' And then, almost hesitantly, 'It's actually nice, to think I get some of your firsts.'

At that, Dean goes completely drymouthed. 'Oh,' he says, and Cas just looks at him, steady and beautiful, and Dean looks back, unable to rip his gaze away from Castiel, the both of them breathing just a little too quickly –

'Cassie, open up! I come bearing wontons and emotional baggage!'

For a moment, neither of them move. Then Dean laughs, sitting back in his chair, surprised to find himself unbothered by Gabriel's interruption. 'Better go let him in,' he says. 'He might scratch a hole in the wood, otherwise.'

'I wouldn't put it past him,' Castiel says darkly, but his eyes dance as he walks past Dean and over to the door, pulling it open with a flourish.

'Gabriel! Welcome to my humble home.'

His brother enters at speed, laden down with several bags of takeout. 'Thanks, Cassie, you will not believe – oh!' He stops, staring at Dean in surprise. 'You found him?'

'Actually, he found me,' says Cas, shutting the door. 'Gabriel, this is Dean. Dean, Gabriel.'

Gabriel pauses, licking his lips. He's shorter than Cas, with floppy blonde hair, a narrow, clever-looking face, and eyes the colour of old honey. What grabs Dean's attention, however, is the purple-black shiner standing out on the right side of his face. 'Hello,' he says, looking briefly uncertain. 'Um. Is this a bad time?'

'Not if you brought enough for three,' says Dean, nodding to indicate the food.

It's not quite an offer of forgiveness, but Gabriel grins like it is – he's a cocky fucker, Dean has to give him that – and comes over to set his bags down on the island. 'Deano, the day I don't buy enough Chinese food is the day they stop making it. We have wontons, prawn toast, special fried rice, chow mein –' he pulls out takeout containers as he speaks, listing the contents of each, until Dean's mouth is watering.

'God, I'm starving,' he says, automatically making space as Gabriel pulls up a chair. 'Cas, you got any plates?'

'Funnily enough, yes,' says Castiel, and a minute later, they're all three seated around the island, Gabe and Dean on one side, Cas on the other, drinking a beer apiece as they help themselves to dinner. They eat in companionable silence, and only when the bulk of the food is gone does Gabriel set down his fork and speak.

'All right,' he says, with the air of one airing a long-suppressed grievance. 'So, get this. I spend four months gathering evidence for the Addison case –'

'Gabriel works for the DA's office,' Cas supplies, in answer to Dean's querying look.

'– and _all because_ ,' says Gabriel, pointedly ignoring the interruption, 'our lead witness is, understandably, terrified. Without our evidence, it's just her word against his, and without her word, the evidence is largely circumstantial, and if Addison walks, then she's exposed herself for nothing. The DA wants this conviction, Cassie, so believe me when I say we've been pulling out all the stops, and for a brief, shining moment, I thought we'd succeeded. You know why I was free to come hound you yesterday?'

'Because you were done?' says Cas, spooning sweet and sour shrimp onto his rice.

'Because I was done,' says Gabriel, stabbing at his food. 'Evidence in order, case secured. Until this morning, when Rochester calls me up and says – surprise! – our witness is now refusing to testify. So I'm thinking, right, it's probably just cold feet, now that we've finally got a trial date, so I put on my most competent-looking suit –' the jacket of which is hanging over the back of his chair, revealing him to be the only man Dean's ever met who actually wears suspenders, '– and go over to have a friendly, reassuring chat. And do you know what she tells me?'

'What did she tell you, Gabe?' says Cas, their call and response so clearly ingrained, Dean smiles despite himself.

Gabriel, though, looks furious. 'She tells me to go away and come back when Alistair Sharp isn't running for mayor.'

Dean chokes on his chow mein.

'That crook?' says Cas, disbelievingly – and then he looks at Dean, and a whole new set of horrified expressions flicker over his face. 'Oh, god. Dean, that's not – it wasn't –'

'What?' says Gabriel, blinking in confusion. 'What am I missing?'

' _He's_ running for mayor?' says Dean, unable to keep the shock from his voice. He drops his fork on the plate, palms braced on the island edge like he's about to push off and stand, except his legs won't work, because of course his life is exactly this fucking complicated; the universe doesn't just give a guy like Cas to a guy like him without offering up some serious karmic bullshit in return, and this, evidently, is it.

Gabriel frowns. 'You know him?'

Dean shudders. 'Oh, I know him,' he says, grabbing his beer and necking the rest of the contents. 'Biblically.'

Gabriel's reaction is almost worth the emotional cost of the admission: his eyes go wide, a look that's equal parts scandal, delight and disbelief spreading across his face. 'Wait, wait. Mr Family Values, Mr 'Sticky Stare' Sharp, the Lord High Slusher of Funds himself, plays for both teams?'

'Actually,' says Dean, 'I'm pretty sure it's just the one.'

Gabriel exhales sharply. 'Holy mother of god.' His quick gaze flicks to Castiel and narrows. 'And you _knew_ about this?'

Dean gets in first, not liking Gabe's accusatory tone. 'He knew I used to sleep with a married man called Alistair; that's it.' And then, because he might as well get it over with, 'He kept me. On the side. Until I stopped looking like such a fucking twink, and then he got someone else.'

He means to say it lightly, but it comes out bitter and biting, and in that moment, Dean tries very hard not to think about why. Jesus, it's not like he was ever hung up on Alistair; they weren't even exclusive. Why the fuck should he care that the guy let him go?

Cas, though, looks murderous, and when he takes Dean's hand again, his grip is tight, almost possessive. Gabriel, by contrast, seems intrigued.

'How long ago was this?' he asks.

'Gabriel!' Cas snarls. 'Behave!'

'No, Cas, it's OK.' Dean shoots him an apologetic glance, then turns back to Gabe. 'I was twenty-two when we met, and twenty-four when he cut me loose. But I, uh, looked younger. Not, like, illegal-young,' he adds quickly, seeing the way their eyebrows shoot up. 'Just, you know –'

' – a twink,' says Gabriel, and Dean does an honest to god double-take, because the other man's expression and voice are more than just sympathetic; they're _knowing_. Dean stares at him, taking in his jaw and cheekbones, arms and waist, the tawny eyes and light blonde hair, and mentally subtracts their adult bulk and definition. And, yeah: he can see it. _Alistair would've loved him_.

'And here I had you down as uptight,' says Dean, feeling marginally more well-disposed towards Cas's brother than he was a minute ago.

Gabriel grins. 'That's usually my line.'

Castiel puts a hand over his eyes. 'I'm entirely too sober for this conversation.'

'Whiskey all round, then?' says Gabriel, cheery as you please. And then, to Dean, as Cas gets up to fulfil the request, 'You know, if you're set on dating my brother, you might want to try and improve his abysmal sense of humour.'

'I can actually hear you, Gabriel.'

'Good.'

There's a pause as Cas distributes the whiskey, making room for the extra glasses by clearing away some of the takeout debris. Feeling obscurely guilty, Dean says, 'Here, let me,' and gets up to help.

'So, Dean,' says Gabriel, swirling the whiskey in his glass, 'what are the chances of you being willing to make an official statement about Alistair?'

'A what?' He's so surprised by the question, he gets his hand caught in the bin, yelping as the lid hits his fingers. And then, hotly, because fuck Gabriel if he's implying what Dean thinks he's implying, 'Nothing I did with him was illegal!'

'No, god no, I didn't mean that!' He looks genuinely mortified, and Dean gives a tight nod, hackles lowering slightly. 'But, look. You must know the sort of man he is; hypocritical doesn't even begin to cover it. He's corrupt, manipulative and dangerous, and if not for the fact that he keeps his own hands clean, we'd have gone after him years ago. But now he's running for mayor, and damned if I'll make it easy on him. I want that fucker nailed to the wall, and if it happens to be in the court of public opinion rather than law, then so be it. At this point, I'll take what I can get.'

Dean goes cold all over. 'You don't want a statement. You want me to start a three-ring media circus about Alistair Sharp, gay adulterer, so you can play dirty politics. Well, _fuck_ you, Gabriel. You think I wanna come out like that? You think anyone does?'

'Come out? But you –' Gabriel looks between them again, at the absolute fury on Castiel's face, and pales. 'You're not already?'

'No,' says Dean, through gritted teeth.

Gabe turns to Cas, a pleading look on his face. 'Cassie, I didn't know, I swear –'

'Get out, Gabriel,' Castiel growls, 'or I'll black up the other one, too.'

Gabe flinches, and the realisation that Cas was the one who gave Gabriel his shiner – and worse, that it was on his account – hits Dean like a sledgehammer. Without thinking, he steps between them.

'Wait!'

Both brothers stop and look at Dean, who freezes under their scrutiny like a rabbit in highbeams. Blood rushes in his ears, and for an awful, choking moment, he can't speak; can barely even stand. In the four years since they parted ways, he's perfected the art of not thinking about Alistair, but somewhere in the back of his mind, old doors are creaking open, and after the past few days, he no longer has the strength to slam them shut.

Careful to keep his gaze lowered, Dean says, 'I won't be your big gay media scandal, or whatever. But I can... I know other things. About Alistair. I could help that way, if you wanted.'

Absolute silence.

'Jesus,' Gabriel breathes, and when Dean finally musters the courage to look at him, his expression is somewhere between awe and reverence. 'Yes, that would... Yes. Please.' He swallows, runs a hand through his hair. 'We'll do it right. I'll speak to my boss, make a time for you to come in.'

'Sure.'

'I shouldn't have –' Gabriel blurts, then stops, mouth working soundlessly. 'I'm sorry,' he says, after a moment. 'I'm a dick, I know that, but I usually do it on purpose. Well, mostly on purpose.' He gives a small, awkward shrug. 'Anyway. Thanks. As one former twink to another, I salute you.'

As sincere apologies go, it isn't very, and Dean is primed to tell him to go fuck himself. But then he hears the startled catch in Castiel's breath, sees the anxious bob of Gabriel's throat, and realises he's just been shown a vulnerability that not even Cas knew existed. Which doesn't mean he likes Gabriel any better – as the man himself says, he's a dick – but Dean is tired of fighting, and so he just nods and says, 'You do that.'

Throughout this exchange, he hasn't once looked at Castiel; Dean doesn't dare, afraid of what he might see. But then, without warning, Cas steps up behind him, tattooed arms looping around his waist as he rests his chin on his shoulder, dropping a kiss behind Dean's ear. It's as possessive a move as it is comforting, and Dean is hard pressed not to gasp out loud.

'Thank you, Gabriel,' Cas drawls, and the heat of his breath by Dean's ear is enough to make him blush. 'I do so enjoy your visits.'

'Yeah, yeah. I can take a hint.' Knocking back the last of his whiskey, Gabriel grabs his jacket and turns to go. 'I'll call you tomorrow, Cassie.'

'I can't wait.'

Gabriel snorts. At the door, though, he hesitates, and when he looks back, his expression is almost wistful. 'Bye-bye, you two,' he says, and lets himself out, the lock clicking shut behind him.

Dean lets out a breath he wasn't conscious of holding, leaning back into Castiel's arms. 'Well,' he says, weakly. 'That was fun.'

'I'll murder him,' Castiel says, his voice a dark rumble. 'I shouldn't have let him in, shouldn't let him anywhere near you.' He tightens his hold on Dean, planting a hard, biting kiss on the back of his neck. 'God, but you were amazing.' His teeth close over Dean's earlobe, sucking it into his mouth, and Dean lets out a breath that's closer to panting. 'Need to show you,' he murmurs, deftly unknotting the robe, his clever hands sliding beneath it, reaching up to tweak his nipples, 'just how amazing you are. Do you want that, Dean? Do you want me to show you?'

Dean whimpers, arching into Castiel's touch. The sudden change of pace is dizzying, but exactly what he needs. 'Yes.'

'Good boy,' Cas purrs, and oh, _fuck_ , that shouldn't be as sexy as it is. 'First, though, I need you to pick a safeword. You know what a safeword is?'

Dean shivers with anticipation. 'Yes.'

'Good. That's _very_ good.' His lips brush the shell of Dean's ear. 'What's your safeword, Dean?'

He's never had one before, but the answer comes to him instantly. 'Orpheus,' he pants.

Cas stills. 'You're sure?'

'I'm sure.'

Cas strokes his sides, then reaches down to unzip his jeans. 'Say it for me.'

'Orpheus.'

Instantly, Cas lets go of him, stepping away completely. Dean turns, confused.

'What did you do that for? It was just a test.'

'And that was my side of it,' Castiel says. 'You say the word, I stop. That's how it works, Dean. Now.' He smiles, wicked and beautiful. 'Do you want to keep going?'

'Yes,' Dean breathes.

'What's the magic word?'

'Please,' he says, and just like that, his legs go weak. ' _Please_ , Cas.'

Cas steps in and kisses him, sucking Dean's bottom lip. ' _Good_ boy,' he murmurs, and leads Dean into the bedroom.

 


	8. Chapter 8

Castiel's pulse ticks hard against the skin of his wrist, like a live thing seeking escape. Goddamit, he'd meant to go slowly with this, sit Dean down and have a proper conversation about limits, triggers, what he needs – negotiate the dom/sub thing before they actually tried it out, which is common sense anyway, but doubly necessary in Dean's case, given that he's both new to this and demonstrably self-hating, which attitude Cas wants to fix, not compound. What he absolutely  _wasn't_ going to do was take charge in the heat of the moment, except that this is, in fact,  _exactly_ what he's doing, because fucking Gabriel couldn't keep his fucking mouth shut, and Cas's whole brain has been violently short-circuited by the overwhelming need to make Dean  _his_ , to show him that he's safe, desired, protected. Cas likes to think of himself as controlled, but seeing Dean struggle to do the right thing while Gabriel, fucking  _Gabriel_ , had the absolute fucking temerity to  _flirt_ with him in  _Cas's own fucking kitchen_ , has hit every single possessive button he has, and then some. 

The bedroom is dark when they enter. Cas flips the lights on low, his fingers burning where they circle Dean's wrist, leading him in until Cas's knees hit the back of the bed. He sits on the mattress, palms sliding up Dean's narrow hips, and guides him between his legs. Dean's eyes are wide, his cheeks flushed, and for the first time, Cas notices the specks of paint on his jaw, faint smudges left by his own hands. Slowly, deliberately, he pulls the cord from Dean's dressing gown and sets it beside him, not missing the way Dean tracks the motion, nor the slight hitch in his breathing.

'Take off the robe,' Cas says, voice low with the effort of control. Dean obeys, shedding it as Cas tugs at his already unzipped jeans, prompting Dean to step out of them. 'Good,' he murmurs, and grips the back of Dean's thighs, mouthing at his erection through the fabric of his boxers. Dean shudders, cock twitching under Cas's tongue, and when Cas looks up at him, his lips are parted, pupils wide and dark.

Slowly, Cas rises, lips trailing upwards along Dean's body, fingers lifting his shirt just ahead of his mouth. He lingers over a nipple, loving the breathy noise Dean makes as he raises his arms and lets Cas tug the tee over his head. Skating his palms across Dean's ribs, he bites his way up his chest, shoulder, neck, sucking the skin a little longer and harder each time, so that each new mark is darker than the last. The final bite lands at the juncture of Dean's jaw and throat, and as Cas draws it out, Dean gasps, hands clutching helplessly at Castiel's hips.

'Beautiful,' Cas murmurs, running a hand through Dean's hair. On a hunch, he grips the base of that soft, gold scruff and  _pulls_ . Dean moans, his eyes going glazed _._

'You like that, Dean?' Cas murmurs, and promptly does it again, twisting his grip to bare Dean's throat. 'Answer me.'

'Yes,' he pants, and Cas kisses him, holding his hair as Dean whimpers into his mouth.

When Castiel finally pulls away, they're both trembling.

'Lie down on your back,' he says, fingertips trailing across Dean's chest.

Dean obeys, his green eyes fixed on Castiel as he stretches out on the mattress. Cas holds his gaze, unblinking as he sheds his jeans. Per his preference, he's not wearing anything under them, and doesn't miss the flash of lust this revelation provokes.

Still standing, he picks up the dressing gown cord, pulling it sensuously between his fingers. Dean's eyes widen; he licks his lips, hypnotised by the movement.

'Cas,' he breathes – and slowly moves his arms above his head, until his hands are crossed at the wrists, palm-up. He gulps, his pupils wide and dark, and adds, ' _Please_ .' 

In seconds, Castiel is on the bed and straddling his waist, gripping his arms as he hungrily sucks Dean's bottom lip. Then he lifts up, looping the cord around his wrists, over and under, binding him to the bars of the headboard. The material is too soft to have much friction, and no matter what Cas does, there's a chance Dean could still slip free, but he knots it snugly all the same, eliciting a gasp.

Tied up, Dean looks wanton, wrecked, and when Cas trails two fingers over his lips, Dean responds by sucking them into his mouth, tongue sleeking wickedly against the tips. Cas groans, hips grinding downwards as his free hand tangles in Dean's hair, tugging until his head falls back, his fingers coming free of Dean's mouth with a soft pop. Cas trails them across Dean's chest, toying wetly with a nipple.

'Tell me what you want, Dean.' He leans down, kissing the shell of his ear. 'Do you want to suck me? Or should I take my time with you –' he rolls his hips again, eliciting gasps from both of them as Dean bucks up into the contact, '– and make you come for me?'

'Fuck, Cas –'

'What do you want?' he whispers, nipping at the exposed, sensitive stretch of flesh above his left armpit, moving up to the crook of his elbow. Dean shudders and whines, twisting against the cord, his breath coming in short, sharp puffs as Castiel sucks the skin into his mouth. 'What do you want, Dean?'

'Ride me.' It comes out almost choked. 'Want to come in you, feel you over me, I –'

Castiel kisses him fiercely, hot tongues sliding together as he rakes his nails up the undersides of Dean's arms, making him writhe. He grabs the lube and starts kissing his way along Dean's body, yanking his boxers off before sucking hard on his hipbone. He's shaking with his own arousal, squeezing the lube on his fingers as he reaches down to prep himself, never looking away from Dean. He gasps, pushing down against his own scissoring digits, then bends forwards, sucking the head of Dean's cock into his mouth. Dean moans, a breathless litany of  _fuck_ and  _please_ and  _Cas_ that's damn near driving Castiel out of his mind; he goes slow for as long as he can, which isn't very, then moves to three fingers, licking a lingering stripe up the underside of Dean's cock before pulling away.

Slowly, breathing hard, Cas removes his fingers, wraps them around Dean's length, lines up and pushes down onto him, a slick-sharp burn that has him gasping with pleasure. He widens his stance, hips shifting as Dean bottoms out; Cas sits a moment, adjusting to the stretch, then runs his palms back up Dean's body, bending over him, foreheads almost touching as he grips his arms just above the elbows.

'Fuck me,' he gasps, and as Cas lifts away, Dean thrusts up into him. They find a rhythm, Dean pushing up as Cas slams down, and soon he's gripping Dean's forearms, hard, because Dean is hitting his prostate with every other stroke and it's all he can do to keep upright. They're slick with sweat, and Castiel can't even speak any more, head bowed almost to Dean's collarbone – something the other man uses to his advantage, turning his head to lick at Castiel's ear. Electricity shoots through him; he makes a punched-out sound, hips faltering, and even bound to the headboard, Dean capitalises on it, sucking the lobe into his mouth and biting down, until Cas is almost sobbing, utterly undone.

It's not quite an exchange of power – for one thing, Cas doesn't know if Dean's even aware of the full effect he's having – but it's close enough to make Cas shiver: something to be filed away, examined and – maybe – discussed, once his brain is working again. Now, though, he twists his hips, trying to regain the control that Dean may or may not be conscious of having stolen, and sucks a bruise onto his shoulder, one more mark that says, unmistakeably, _mine_.

Mouth still close by his ear, Dean gasps out, 'Fuck, Cas, so fucking perfect, I'm gonna –' and comes, hot and hard, hips stuttering as he pulses within him, and that tips Castiel over the edge, shooting white stripes across Dean's chest and stomach. They rock together, trembling through the aftershocks; Castiel lifts his gaze, staring down into those lust-blown eyes, and slowly lifts his hands away. There's a warm, damp gush as he levers himself off Dean, palms braced on either side of him. Castiel smirks at that, and for a moment, Dean looks confused – until Cas starts to lick him clean of his own come, hips to ribs, and through it all Dean tips back his head and makes a noise that's somewhere between a hum and a whisper.

When he's done, he climbs back up Dean's length and kisses him soundly, fingers working to untie the knotted cord.

'Jesus, Cas,' Dean croaks, as his hands come free. 'You're incredible.'

'You're not bad yourself,' Cas says, smiling. He rubs gentle circles into Dean's wrists, then lifts each one to his mouth in turn, kissing the underside. 'Any numbness?' he asks, and fuck, that was another conversation they should've had before Cas ever tied him up, even with something as fluffy as the cord. It's only left faint red marks, and those are already fading, but even so. 'Pins and needles? Pain? Anything like that?'

Dean shakes his head. 'My arms and shoulders hurt a little, but in a good way.'

'Your arms – oh, shit.' Cas bites his lip.

'What? What is it?'

'I've bruised you,' Cas admits. 'I – shit. I shouldn't have done that, not without asking first.'

'You didn't bruise me,' Dean scoffs. 'Sure, you held on a little, but –'

By way of answer, Cas holds up one of Dean's arms, positioning it so that the dark, undeniably fingerprint-shaped bruises marking the skin are clearly evident. Dean blinks, surprised. 'Huh. I stand corrected.'

'I shouldn't have done that,' Cas repeats, and kisses each mark in turn, on both arms, until his racing pulse settles. 'And the hickies, too –' he gulps, because there are plenty of those, red-purple and gleaming, '– I promise, I'll be more careful next time.'

'Don't.' Dean blushes, a response made all the more adorable by the way it brings out his freckles. 'I mean, uh. Be careful, but... you can mark me.' And then, with a soft intensity that cuts right to Castiel's core, 'I want you to mark me.'

A small moan escapes Cas's lips, and Dean is there to swallow it, pulling him in for a kiss.

When they finally break apart, Cas pulls Dean across to the dry side of the bed, and has him roll on his stomach. Then, very carefully, he massages his arms and shoulders, working out the knots. The left side is mostly fine, but there's a spot on Dean's right that's much more tender, and Cas is instantly concerned.

'Have you hurt this shoulder before?' he asks, fingers kneading gently at the sore muscle.

Dean is quiet a moment. 'When my dad, uh. You know. After the inquest. He dislocated it.'

Cas stills, resting his palms flat on Dean's back, stroking with just his thumbs as he tries to choose his words. He didn't mean to pick a hard topic, but it's clearly relevant, and now he doesn't know whether to continue, or just let it lie. He frowns, trying to think it through. On the one hand, Cas has never been into more than light bondage, and he's never had any desire whatsoever to inflict pain. But on the other, Dean clearly enjoyed being tied up, even bruised a little, and despite his best intentions for safe practice, Cas failed to check beforehand if he Dean had any physical vulnerabilities. And as he can't promise himself he won't get lost in any more moments –

'Dean, I understand if you're not comfortable sharing the details, or if you'd rather discuss it later –' he resumes his massage as he speaks, letting his hands work lower, away from the tender flesh, '– but in case we do anything like this again, it would be helpful to know if you have any other old injuries that might flare up, things I might accidentally make worse.'

Dean tenses, and Cas mentally castigates himself – both for upsetting him, and because he's only just remembered that his boyfriend is, in fact, coming down with a cold, and really should be under the blankets. Leaning forward, Cas kisses the back of his neck, then lies down alongside him, pulling Dean into his arms and tucking them both snugly under the covers. Dean burrows into him, his head on Castiel's chest, and for a moment, they just lie like that, safe and warm and silent.

Then, softly, Dean says, 'He broke my ribs. Three on the left, one on the right. My leg, too, my right leg, but not badly. And cracked my head, but I can't think what you could do to me to make that act up.' And he laughs, the sound thin and sad.

Castiel pictures Dean as a teenager, waking up in a hospital bed with a dislocated shoulder, a fractured skull, five broken bones and god knows how many other cuts and bruises, and for a moment, he's so furious he can barely breathe. Holding Dean closer, he kisses his temple, one hand running possessively over his side. 'What he did to you was inexcusable. None of it was your fault.' And then, when Dean nods against his chest, 'I promise to be careful of those areas. I never want to hurt you.'

Dean laughs again, and this time, it sounds genuine. 'Funtime bruises and hickies the exception, obviously.'

'Noted,' Cas says, dropping another kiss on Dean's head. 'But you feel OK, otherwise? I didn't cross any lines?'

'God, no.' Dean looks up at him, suddenly worried. 'Wait, did _I_ do something wrong?'

Castiel strokes his cheek, smiling. 'You were perfect, Dean. I just want to make sure I didn't cross any boundaries. Just because you didn't use your safeword doesn't mean I didn't do something you'd rather I avoid in the future, or that you might want to talk about.'

'Oh.' Dean looks visibly relieved. 'Oh, well, that's good. And it was, um. That was really good, Cas.' And he blushes again.

'For me, too.' He remembers the feel of Dean's teeth on his ear, and feels his own cheeks heat. 'Which reminds me: my safeword is honeycomb.'

' _Your_ safeword?' He blinks, considering. 'Actually, that makes sense.' And he turns his head, lipping affectionately at Cas's fingers. 'I don't want to hurt you, either.'

A new, warm feeling unfurls in Castiel's stomach. He swallows, suddenly overwhelmed by Dean's proximity, trust, beauty. 'Can you stay the night?' he asks, the question leaping out of its own accord. 'I know you have work tomorrow, but depending on what time it starts, I could always drive you there.'

Dean considers. 'Well, the library doesn't open until 10am on Sunday, and it's not far from my place, which is... what, a fifteen minute drive from here, tops? And I'd need to go home first, for a change of clothes and a shower –'

'You could shower here,' Cas says, grinning.

Dean grins back. 'Definitely an option, provided you don't make me too late.'

'I'll do my best.' He hesitates, overtaken by an absurd shyness. 'So, you'll stay?'

Kissing the edge of his jaw, Dean smiles. 'I'll stay.'

 


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay between chapters! I've been on deadline for other writing projects, but I promise there will be more updates soon :)

_Sunday morning, I'm waking up_

_Can't even focus on a coffee cup_

_Don't even know who's bed I'm in_

_Where do I start, where do I begin?_

 

Dean isn't ordinarily a Chemical Brothers fan, but he can't get [the song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ba58cWjoRqI) out of his head, because it really is Sunday, he really did wake up confused about where he was, and he really did fail to drink his coffee, largely because Castiel brought it to him in bed, and then proceeded to make such good use of his mouth that it ended up growing cold on the nightstand. For all that they ended up racing against the clock to get Dean to work on time – and despite the fact that his throat is sore, his muscles aching with incipient fever – this has still been one of the most relaxing mornings he can remember. Now, freshly dressed in dark slacks and a button-down, the collar and long sleeves conveniently hiding all but one of his new marks, he leans back in the passenger seat of Cas's car, which – rather pleasingly – has turned out to be an old silver Porsche Boxster. They pull into the parking lot with three minutes to spare, and Dean wastes two of them kissing his boyfriend goodbye, because even though they're going to see each other in a few hours – the book launch starts at 4pm, and Cas has promised he'll come – they haven't been able to keep their hands off each other.

Which is new for Dean, and more than a little exhilarating. He hadn't realised how touch-starved he was until last night, when Cas tied him to the bed and made Dean watch as he prepped himself. He's pretty sure that's how he hurt his shoulder, wrenching against the cord because he'd  _needed_ to touch Cas, and couldn't, and part of him went wild with it, until he'd finally managed to suck Cas's earlobe into his mouth and give back just a fraction of what he wanted. 

Spurred by the memory, he grips the front of Cas's shirt and pulls him half out of the driver's seat, kissing him even more deeply. Cas responds eagerly, one hand sliding up Dean's thigh as the other cups his neck.

'You're going to be late,' he says, nipping at the one, dark hickie Dean's collar can't hide, just below his left ear.

'Worth it,' Dean pants, and chases his mouth, pulling him down again. Which is more than a little awkward, physically speaking: the Boxster is small, with seats that weren't exactly designed for romantic liaisons between two grown men. But Dean doesn't give a shit, because right now, he wants to stop kissing Cas only slightly less than he wants to stop breathing, and if the urgency of Cas's response is anything to go by, then the feeling is definitely mutual.

' _Dean?_ '

The voice hits him like a shock of cold water. Dean jerks away so suddenly, he gets almost tangled in his seatbelt – and there, right outside the car window, is Charlie, staring at him with one hand clapped to her mouth, her eyebrows shooting into her hairline.

'Evidently, the jig is up,' says Cas, and Dean gives a short, embarrassed bark of laughter. Shooting Charlie a meaningful glare, he turns back to Cas, a fierce blush already spreading up his neck, and says, 'I'll see you at four?'

Cas grins, giving him a gentle peck on the cheek. 'I wouldn't miss it. But, Dean?'

'Yeah?'

'If you need me before then – if you get upset, or you want to talk, whatever the reason – just call, OK?'

'I will,' he says, a little overwhelmed by the offer, but nonetheless grateful for it. 'Thanks, Cas.'

'Any time.'

Dean lets out a shaky breath, steadies himself as best he can, which isn't very, and exits the car.

' _Dude_ ,' says Charlie, dropping her hand. Her brown eyes are wide, and she cranes her head, angling for a better look at Cas. 'Not that I swing that way, but  _damn_ !' 

Growling, Dean stalks towards the library, walking fast enough that Charlie has to struggle to catch up. His pulse is hammering in his ears, his stomach churning sickly, and it takes him a moment to realise why: he just outed himself to Charlie, which makes her the first of his friends to know, and it doesn't matter that she's gay, too, and therefore supremely unlikely to judge him – this is a big deal for him, he was supposed to do it properly, not get caught making out in the carpark like some horny teenager, and oh,  _fuck_ – 

He reaches the library just in time to grab the wall, gulping in breaths as his vision spins.

'Dean! Hey, are you OK?' Charlie finally catches him up, putting a tentative hand on his shoulder. 'Dean?'

'Is he still there?' He shuts his eyes, leaning against the bricks.

'Who?'

'The guy in the car. Is he still there? Can he see me?'

'Oh! No, he's gone, he drove away while you were walking.'

Dean slumps, shaking with relief. 'Oh, thank god. He's already dealt with enough of my crap, he doesn't need to see me like this, too.'

He looks up in time to see Charlie do a double-take, the penny finally dropping. 'Wait a minute. I thought you were straight!'

Dean smiles weakly. 'Surprise?'

'You secretive ass!' Charlie smacks his shoulder. 'All that time I wasted setting you up with straight chicks, and you couldn't have tipped me the wink?' She's clearly expecting a laugh, but her face changes when Dean stays silent. 'Oh. Oh! Shit!' Her hand flies back to her mouth. 'Did I just out you?'

'Technically, I think I outed myself. But I was going to tell you. Today. With, you know. Words.' And then, because he needs to hear himself say it to someone, just once. 'I'm gay.'

'Well, obviously.' Charlie smiles at him. 'Welcome to the club. You wanna hug?'

'Maybe,' Dean mumbles.

Despite her small size, Charlie turns out to be surprisingly strong, wrapping him in a tight squeeze worthy of a boa constrictor. Dean hugs back, only slightly awkward, and yeah, it's all a bit dorky and cliché, but it still makes him feel better, and when Charlie finally lets him go, his anxiety is gone. She grins at him, sensing the change, and loops her bright red hair behind her ears.

'Right, so, not to demand your whole closeted backstory up front or anything, but you  _so_ owe me a conversation about this. With drinks. And possibly some onion rings.'

'Deal,' says Dean, unable to keep from grinning back, because Charlie's happiness is infectious like that. Even so, a nervous jolt goes through him at the prospect.

They head into the library, which is already open – Ash, their other colleague, comes in a half hour earlier to set up the computers – and Dean distracts himself with work. He starts by reshelving books; he's always found the rhythm of it soothing, and today is no exception. It's one of the reasons he likes having two different jobs: they challenge him in different ways, keep him balanced, and he's self-aware enough to realise that, with everything else that's screwed up in his life, it's a dichotomy he needs as much as enjoys. When he fixes cars, it's cathartic, like solving a puzzle, but not always relaxing – aside from being physically intensive, he has to think about what he's doing, what happens next, what the customer wants. But at the library, he can let himself go, moving on a pleasant autopilot while his thoughts drift. It's as close as he ever gets to zen, and he treasures it.

Except, of course, when he's dealing with library patrons, which is the less tranquil aspect of his weekend job. Books might be calming, but adult members of the general public are vastly less so, especially when they refuse to understand why you can't just hand over the popular new release that ten other people already have on reserve, or when they talk loudly on their phones, or spill the smoothie they're not meant to bring inside on the photocopier five other people are waiting to use.

Because the universe loves irony, this last happens just when Dean is due to go for lunch, and as Ash has been railroaded by yet another senior citizen who can't figure out how to use Google – and as he owes Charlie for yesterday – it falls to him to clean it up. Happily, the machine itself is undamaged, but by the time he's finished, Dean is famished. Stomach growling, he's on his way out when Charlie pops up alongside him like a manic jack-in-the-box.

'Hey! Mind if I join you?'

Dean blinks at her. Usually, they try to stagger their lunchbreaks so as not to leave the place short-staffed, and it's not like they've had a slow morning. 'You sure? I mean, will Ash be OK on his own?'

Charlie rolls her eyes. 'Ash is Ash. He'll be fine.' She waggles her wallet at him. 'C'mon, my treat! And don't even pretend you don't wanna tell me all about Porsche Guy.'

'Cas,' Dean says, blushing despite himself. 'His name is  _Cas,_ OK? Not Porsche Guy?'

'I  _see_ .' Charlie feigns seriousness. 'Clearly, this is a conversation we should be having with food.'

'Not gonna argue with that,' he says, and lets Charlie shepherd him over the road to his usual burger place. But as they walk, Dean's earlier nervousness returns, and what disquiets him almost as much as the feeling itself is the fact that he doesn't know where it's coming from, or why. Charlie is his friend; he'd planned on telling her about Cas, and so far, she's been nothing but nice about it. It's not like she's being pushy, either: she doesn't say a word until after they've ordered, then props her chin on her hands and says, 'All right, Winchester. Spill.'

'Spill?' says Dean, the word raising his eyebrow and heartrate both. 'Really?'

Charlie just beams at him, and after a moment, Dean gives in. 'All right,' he says, and just like that, his nerves are back. 'I just... no judging, OK? This is all kinda new to me.'

'I get that,' says Charlie. 'But, straight up, I gotta ask – were you really sick yesterday, or were you just having  _the sex_ ?' 

'Both,' he admits, blushing despite himself. 'I was sick, and Cas, ah... took care of me.'

'I'll  _bet_ he did,' Charlie says. 'So, when did you guys get together?'

'Thursday night.'

Charlie blinks. 'Last Thursday? As in, Thursday that was  _three days ago_ ?'

'Yeah?'

'And you're already having steamy morning makeouts in his car when he drops you at work?'

'I guess?' Dean fidgets, not sure whether he's being teased or censured. He knows that Charlie means well, but he's feeling more unsettled now, not less. 

'Dude.' Oblivious to his reaction, Charlie shoots him an impressed look, leaning back into her side of the booth. 'That is  _smooth_ . But all right, so, Thursday. Put me in the picture. Was it a date? How did you meet him?' 

It's a precipice moment, and like the setup to an episode of  _Star Trek_ , Dean can practically feel the timelines bifurcating as he hesitates. In one possible future, he lies, sanding the rough edges off the story into something sweet and safe and, ultimately, unrecognisable, thereby letting him keep up his treasured pretence of being, if not always happy, then at least normal. In the other, he tells the truth – or the relevant parts of it, anyway – and either alienates his friend, or gains her trust, but at the expense of his privacy either way. 

And the stupid thing is, he really does need someone to talk to about all this, because even though he's determinedly refusing to think about Alistair and Gabriel and everything that happened last night between dinner and sex, it's still hanging over him like Edgar Allen Poe's pendulum, and he's spent the last decade lying to pretty much everyone, including himself, and Charlie gives really good advice. It should be a complete no-brainer. All he has to do is tell her that –

_I went to get fucked at a skeezy club and ended up going home with the owner's brother, and the next day, their_ other  _brother showed up and called me a whore, so I went home, got blackout drunk, had a personal crisis and then let my new boyfriend tie me up and fuck me so hard, I've had to hide the bruises._

Shame punches through him, and guilt, and fear. Dean's vision greys at the edges, and it's like he's tumbled off the edge of a cliff, plummeting through screaming air without any hope of rescue.  _I'm hiding bruises. I let him fuck me like that and I liked it and I thought it was different, I thought_ Cas _was different but what if he's not, what if_ I'm _not, what if I'm just doing the same thing I always did and it's not about submission and trust at all, just me being broken? No, no, I told him to mark me, not hurt me, we had a safeword and he makes me feel safe and it's not dirty, it's not the same thing as Dante's, it feels too good, it can't be, it_ can't _be._

_Can it?_

_Oh, god. Fuck. I don't know. I don't know any more._

Dean grips the tabletop, dimly aware that Charlie is saying is name, that he needs to answer, but he can't make himself do it, because the second he opens his mouth, he's going to be sick. 

_Cas. I need Cas._

He mouths his name, silently, an almost-prayer. Because Cas had understood that this might happen; had explained about subdrop over breakfast, how Dean might react to what they'd done once the high wore off and what he should do to keep himself steady if it happened, but Dean hadn't been paying attention, because he finally felt  _right_ , better than he had in years, and why did Cas want to talk about it going wrong? Except that it  _has_ gone wrong, and now he's hyperventilating in a fucking burger place, only dimly aware that Charlie looks completely freaked out, getting up from her side of the table to come and kneel beside him. Dean gulps, trying to breathe, and finally mumbles something about being hungry, lightheaded, which is a pisspoor excuse for a lie, but Charlie doesn't press. Instead, she's on the phone – Dean's phone? Did she get it out of his pocket? – and talking to someone, rapid bursts of speech that sound like they're coming from underwater.

Then she hangs up, and makes Dean scoot over to make room for her, so they're both on the same side of the booth. She puts a hand on his back and starts rubbing, gentle pats as he struggles to calm down, and it's soothing enough that, for half a minute, it almost works. But then Dean remembers what set him off in the first place, and he feels like the ugliest, least deserving person alive, and oh, god, he promised to help Gabriel, he promised to tell him about Alistair, but he can't even tell Charlie about how he met Cas without freezing up, and why is this so goddamn difficult?  _It's not like you can have any pride left, the things you've done. Stop being such a fucking drama queen._ He's trying to shock himself out of it, but it only makes things worse, and he has no idea how long he's just been sitting there, but all at once, Charlie isn't touching him any more – she's standing, moving aside, letting someone take her place –

It's Cas. Somehow, impossibly, it's Cas, and Dean almost sobs, though whether from shame or relief, he doesn't know.

Cas puts an arm around his waist, giving him a gentle squeeze. His fingers stroke against Dean's ribs, and he leans in, speaking quietly into his ear, low enough that not even Charlie could overhear.

'Hey, beautiful.' He kisses his cheek. 'It's OK, you're safe, I've got you, I promise. Can you breathe in for me? Nice and deep, that's it. And out again.'

Slowly, Dean breathes, and something in him starts to unknot. Cas keeps stroking his side, deft fingers slipping under his shirt to warm against his skin. Dean shuts his eyes, and Castiel kisses his ear, his jaw, still murmuring praise. 'You're amazing, Dean. You're doing so well. Just breathe in again, that's it. You're fine. You're wonderful.'

A lump forms in his throat. 'I'm sorry,' he whispers. 'Cas, I'm sorry I'm such a mess, you shouldn't –'

'Shhh. You're not a mess, Dean, you don't need to apologise for anything. Come here.' Cas shifts in the booth and pulls him close, running his fingers through Dean's hair, letting him rest his head on his shoulder. 'I've got you. It's all right.'

Dean puts his arms around Cas and holds on, forehead pressed hard to his collarbone. Cas smells of linen and salt, with just a hint of oil paint and the bacon he cooked for breakfast, and Dean breathes it in, anchoring himself, until his heart stops pounding and his stomach settles. Only then does he ease himself up and open his eyes, and there's Cas, smiling at him like they're back in bed.

'Hey,' says Dean, unable to think of anything else.

'Hey,' says Cas, and brushes their lips together. 'You feeling a bit better?'

'Yeah.' Dean manages a smile. 'What are you doing here, anyway?'

'Charlie called me. Said you needed help.'

'She did?' And then, turning to face the opposite side of the booth – where, to his embarrassment, Charlie is still sitting – 'You did? How come?'

'You asked for him,' Charlie says.

'I did?'

'You did.' She still looks a bit rattled, her sharp gaze flitting between them, but her voice is soft, her hands folded in her lap. 'And I didn't know what else to do, so I went with it. You're just lucky he was nearby.'

Dean turns back to Cas, surprised. 'You were?'

Cas shrugs, sheepishly. 'Well, I haven't spent much time in this part of town before, so I thought I'd drive around a little, check it out. I was only a few streets over when Charlie called. And I'm very glad you did,' he says, turning those bright blue eyes her way. 'Thank you.'

'Sure thing,' says Charlie, only a little awkward. 'And, uh, just so's you know, I don't judge. Like, if we're talking exchange of trust, I once woke up in a strange girl's room at Comic-Con wearing nothing but a Princess Leia bikini and go-go boots, neither of which were mine. Oh, and I was hugging an inflatable crocodile. So whatever you guys took, I honestly –'

'Wait,' says Dean, cutting her off. 'What we _took?_ You think this about drugs?' He almost laughs out loud. 'You honestly think I'm on drugs right now?'

Charlie makes a face. 'Are you honestly trying to tell me that you're not?'

Dean opens his mouth to answer, but finds himself forestalled by the arrival of their burgers. The plates sound overly loud as they clink against the table top, and he stares dumbly at the food, partly because he's hungry, but mostly because he doesn't know what to say. Cas's face is fixed in a sort of bemused squint, and when Dean looks at him, he just flicks an eyebrow, as if to say,  _Your friend, your call_ . 

'I mean,' says Charlie, obliviously tucking into her food, 'no offence, but I know what a comedown looks like.'

_Clearly, you don't_ , Dean almost says. Instead, he distracts himself with his burger, which turns out to be a solid move: he's starving, it's delicious, and he ends up devouring the whole thing in about five bites, which is no mean feat. He's wiping the sauce off his chin when he realises Cas is watching him, a faint smile tugging the corner of his mouth.

'What?'

'Nothing,' says Cas, feigning innocence as he helps himself to Dean's fries. 'You're cute when you eat.'

Dean's ears turn pink. 'I am not.'

'You are too. Like a surly python.'

'Like a what?'

'You heard me.'

'Oh, I heard you. I'm just trying to figure out how that's a compliment.'

'Use your imagination,' says Cas, reaching for more fries. Dean swats his hand away, snorting with laughter.

'If I'm a python, you're a vulture. Get your own!'

'I am. It's called foraging in the wild –' Cas snakes a hand behind Dean's guard, snagging a fry, '– and I am an  _expert_ .' He pops it in his mouth, chewing triumphantly. 

Huffing, Dean curls a protective arm around his plate. 'Yeah, well, why not engage in some equal-opportunities foraging? Go steal from Charlie!'

Charlie swallows the last of her burger and rolls her eyes at the pair of them. 'Stoners,' she mutters, not without a certain air of grudging affection.

Almost, Dean corrects her. He can feel the words on the back of his tongue, like a pill half-swallowed:  _I'm not on drugs, Charlie. I just freaked out because I've done some ugly things, and I don't know how to explain about Cas and why I'm out all of a sudden without mentioning them, and subdrop is also a factor, assuming you know what that is, which you possibly don't – hell, I'm not even sure I fully get it – but that's another new thing, too, and it's a lot for me to take in, let alone explain over lunch. Also, I hate myself._

Which is why, instead, he eats his fries and leans into Cas as though there's nothing else left to discuss. And besides, it's not like he's actually lying to Charlie, per se – he's just not setting her straight. 

'So, now that I'm here,' says Cas, interrupting this chain of thought, 'would it be weird if I came in and loitered until the launch? I promise, I'll keep out of your way.'

Dean gives him a playful shove. 'Dude, it's a public library. Of course you can come in.'

Cas shoves back, then ducks his head, kissing Dean's neck. 'Just wanted to make sure.'

Charlie squints at them suspiciously. 'Are you guys sure you only met on Thursday? Because high or not, this is all a bit too adorable for day three.'

'What can I say?' says Dean, grinning just a little too broadly. 'I'm a fast learner.'

'I'll say,' Cas murmurs, and strokes a hand up his thigh.

Dean makes a choking noise. 'Pretty sure that's cheating, Cas.'

'Says who?'

Charlie puts a hand over her eyes. 'Oh my god,  _stop_ . I'm getting diabetes by proximity, here!' She leaves a handful of bills by her plate and scooches out of the booth, winking at Dean as she makes for the door. 'I'll see you guys back at the ranch!'

Cas watches her go, his expression amused. 'She's odd. I like her.' And then, more quietly, 'How are you feeling?'

'Better, I think. You helped. And I really needed to eat.' Dean stares at his hands. 'So, that was subdrop.'

'I suspect so,' says Cas. He reaches up and strokes Dean's jaw. 'You want to tell me what happened?'

Dean swallows. 'She asked how we met, and I – I didn't know what to say, because of – well, you know. And then I started thinking about last night, and it's not that I don't trust you, Cas, because I do, I really do, but what if I can't trust _me_?' His hands are shaking; he clenches them in his lap. 'I've made so many bad calls, and that night at Dante's, if it hadn't been you who found me, I would've just gone with someone, I would've – I would've let them – oh, god – and I thought you were going to – but you _weren't_ , you were so good, and I didn't know –' the words tumble out in sharp bursts, like he's spitting seeds, '– but that's just it, Cas, _I didn't know_ , you could've been anyone, and I would've – and you _know_ I would've, you _know_ , and what if that's why I like what I do? What if I only trust you because I don't trust myself, because part of me still wants this to be a bad decision?' He feels like there's a knife in his throat, and his last question comes out raw and cracked. 'What if I fuck this up?'

'Look at me. _Look_ at me, Dean.' Cas lifts his jaw, and his eyes are so damn blue, they're like a trap: even wanting to look away, he can't. 'You're not fucking anything up. What we do in bed, my dominance, it's not about me demanding your trust like a tribute and having carte blanche forever and ever, amen. Trust is a process; I have to earn it from you, I have to give you back safety and care and pleasure in exchange for it, and if you ever feel like I'm not doing those things, or if I'm giving you one at the expense of the others, you need to let me know, OK? And what _you_ need to know, right now, is that you have nothing to be ashamed of – not for what you did at Dante's before me, or might have done at Dante's without me, or for anything we did afterwards. _Nothing._

'And as for last night –' Cas inhales, an awed light stealing over his features, '– god, Dean, you were extraordinary. Every sound you make, every touch. Just – everything.' He brushes his thumb against his lips and leans in, kissing his ear. 'You set me on fire,' he whispers.

Liquid lightning shivers through him, every nerve sparking like tapped flint, and he doesn't know whether he grabs Cas or Cas grabs him, but suddenly they're kissing, Dean shoved back against the wall of the booth and digging his hands through Castiel's hair. He can't get enough, and when they finally break apart, Dean doesn't need a mirror to know how thoroughly debauched he looks; he can _feel_ it, right down to his bones.

'Jesus, Cas,' he breathes. 'If I'm extraordinary, what does that make you?'

Cas grins, running a hand through his already ruffled sex-hair. 'Lucky, I think. Very, very lucky.'

'Lucky,' Dean echoes. A slow smile spreads across his face. Somehow, he's always believed in luck, despite – or perhaps, perversely, because of – how little of it he's had, and maybe he can't quite trust his own judgement yet, but he can trust in luck, because luck gave him Cas, and it's enough. For now, it's more than enough. 'I can live with that.'

 


	10. Chapter 10

Castiel sits in the library armchair, hiding behind a biography of Picasso as he watches Dean work. It's been over an hour since they came back from lunch, and he can still feel their parting kiss on his lips like a new tattoo. If not for that, he could almost convince himself that his preoccupation with watching Dean is nothing more than concern for his well-being – a conscious decision, rather than an automatic compulsion. Which isn't to say Cas isn't keeping an eye out for signs of returning subdrop, too; he's not completely irresponsible. It's just that he can't stop thinking about how easy it would be to push his boyfriend up against one of the shelves, or pull him into his lap, or steer them both into the storage cupboard, make him moan obscenely into Cas's mouth –

_Jesus. Get a hold of yourself._

Cas turns the page, trying and failing to make himself read the next one. Maybe he needs a new book; something from the biology section with a helpful chapter on human pheromones, perhaps, the better to understand why even being in the same room as Dean is enough to render him senseless. Or, no – he should be reading Da Vinci, not Picasso, because Da Vinci understood the Golden Ratio, and if any man alive is going to fit those specifications, it's surely Dean Winchester. Cas licks his lips, attempting not to stare as Dean bends down to pick up a dropped book. Truth be told, the strength of his own attraction is starting to unsettle him. Castiel has never thought of himself as a shallow person, and in the past, his amorous inclinations have generally born that out. It's not that he's disinterested in physical beauty; it's that he usually has to know a person in order to find them arousing, make some link between body and mind. Flesh on its own can be pretty enough, but not something to lose sleep over – it's _people_ he finds attractive.

Or at least, he thought he did. But from the second he saw Dean, he desired him as badly as he's ever desired anyone, and every new thing he learns about him only makes it worse. Castiel has connected with people before, met beautiful people before, been attracted to strangers before, but not to this degree, nor in such a spectacular confluence, and it's driving him nearly out of his skin with wanting.

Which is somewhat awkward, given the fact that Dean is currently helping five-year-old twins pick out their favourite picture books. He clearly knows the family, swapping amused looks with the parents over the heads of the children before turning to mediate a dispute over which sibling gets first read of what, and goddamit, _god-fucking-damnit_ , does he have to be good with kids, too? Can the man not have a single, reasonable flaw to help ground Cas in reality, instead of lighting up like a goddamn Christmas tree when the twins grab his legs and ask him to read them a story? Castiel tries to focus on Picasso, conscious of the fact that his staring could be construed as creepy, but it's barely even a token effort, because Cas loves children, loves the fierce, fragmented energy that makes them simultaneously the most single-minded and easily distractable creatures in existence, and Dean just sits right down on the floor and starts reading _The Snail and the Whale_ aloud like there's nothing else in the world he'd rather be doing.

It doesn't help that the twins – a boy and a girl – are eerily reminiscent of a young Anna and Michael. Castiel's little sister and brother used to sit just like that when he read to them, and given the varying modes of seemingly perpetual bachelorhood embraced by Luke and Gabriel, he's counting on one of the younger Novaks to finally make him an uncle. The thought twists something inside him, unexpected enough that he wrenches his gaze away, staring at the biography in his lap like it's written in hieroglyphics. He thinks about the still-unfinished painting in his studio, how much it he'd like to wake up tomorrow and work on it – correction, wake up with _Dean_ and work on it – and how he can't, because he has a meeting first thing, and numbers to go over, and Dean has his other job to get on with, and the thought is so disproportionately depressing that he shuts the book in disgust.

His phone picks this moment to receive a text, buzzing in his pocket like a large, polite wasp. Pathetically glad of the distraction, Cas taps the message, and is utterly unsurprised to find that it's from Gabriel, whose timing over the past few days has been nothing if not uncanny. But then, Cas supposes, his brother is uncanny most of the time, so it's hardly a shocking development.

_G: LITTLE BRO. can u stop banging ur new bf long enough 2 ask him if he's free to meet at noon on tues re: al sharp? I will say thanks with gifts._

Suppressing an eyeroll, Castiel responds.

_C: We're not in bed, you pervert. He's working a shift at the library, and I'm waiting here for a book launch to start._

Gabriel's response is typically quick, and just as typically irritating.

_G: riiiiight. so ur just THINKIN abt banging him_

Castiel stares at his phone for a full ten seconds, minutely furious that this is, in fact, exactly what he's been doing, and is on the brink of formulating the perfect, scathing denial-slash-comeback when another text arrives.

_G: OMG U TOTALLY ARE_

Reflexively, Cas sneaks another glance at Dean. He's almost finished _The Snail and the Whale_ , and the boy twin is resting his head on his shoulder. Which is a pure, chaste sight, and absolutely does not add to Dean Winchester's sex appeal in any way whatsoever.

_C: I need help, Gabriel._

_G: I've always thought so_

Abruptly, candour gets the better of him.

_C: I'm serious. I feel like I'm going crazy._

_G: wait wait are we havin n actual TALK r/n? bro to bro? 4 realsies?_

_C: Not if you keep using quasi-ironic netspeak._

_G: Challenge accepted. Lay it on me, Cassie – how far down the rabbit-hole are you?_

_C: I don't know how to answer that._

_G: On a scale of one to ten, one being Rush Limbaugh and ten being a naked and oily Joe Manganiello, where do you rate Dean Winchester?_

Not knowing who Joe Manganiello is, Castiel takes a moment to do the appropriate Googling, which tells him nothing about his brother's taste in men he didn't already know, and yet still manages to be vaguely disquieting. Then again, he's been privy to enough of the sordid details of Gabe's sex life over the years that it's small wonder he's developed something of a Pavlovian response to even mild new data.

Bracing himself for the inevitable scorn, he types his response.

_C: Eleven._

_G: It's a sign of my deep love for you that I'm not making a Spinal Tap joke right now._

_C: Your maturity is noted._

_G: As well it should be. OK. So you think he's hot. What's the big deal?_

_G: Also, please note that any use of the phrase “I've never felt this way before” legally entitles me to slap you. In public._

Castiel looks back at Dean. The story finished, he's waving goodbye as the twins' parents lead them over to the front desk, each one with an armful of books. Dean picks this moment to look around for Cas, and the smile that spreads across his face on finding him is so wickedly sweet, it sends a hot blush scalding over Castiel's cheeks, the breath catching hard in his throat. _God help me, I really am lost._ He lets out a long, slow breath and turns back to his phone.

_C: Consider yourself entitled, then._

_G: You're not serious._

_C: I wish I wasn't._

_G: Cassie, it's been THREE DAYS. You barely know the guy._

_C: You think I don't know that?_

_G: I think you've gone so long unlaid, you're mistaking lust for the other thing._

_C: Fuck you._

_G: I'm serious. Also, just FYI, our parents are strictly anti Vegas weddings. Even gay ones._

_C: I will stab you._

_G: That's the spirit! Let the hate soothe your crazy artist heart._

_C: Right in your STUPID face._

_G: MAYBE HE'S YOUR MUSE, CASSIE._

_C: Goodbye, Gabriel._

_G: PAINT HIM LIKE ONE OF YOUR FRENCH GIRLS._

And then, when Castiel doesn't respond:

_G: for reals tho ask him abt tuesday_

In an act of superhuman forbearance, Castiel neither throws his phone at the wall nor rises to Gabriel's bait. Instead, he pockets the damn thing, gets up out of his chair, and slips across to the other side of the library, where Dean is engaging sternly with an apparently recalcitrant photocopier. Stepping up behind him, Cas slides an arm around his waist, puts his mouth to his ear, and murmurs, 'Mr Winchester, might I have a word?'

Dean jumps, then turns in his grasp, smiling as Cas backs him up against the machine. 'Something I can help you with, sir?' he asks, hands sliding to Castiel's hips, and there's smirk enough in the _sir_ that Cas almost groans.

'Actually,' he says, hands moving to Dean's lower back, 'I'd like to make a customer service complaint.'

'Oh? Why's that?' Dean grins coyly. 'Are you not completely satisfied?'

'That's right,' Cas says, trailing his lips along Dean's jaw. 'I've been here over an hour, and in all that time, you haven't once tried to seduce me.'

His breathing hitches. 'I'm sorry, sir. That's clearly an oversight.'

'You can make it up to me,' Cas says, thumbs stroking possessively along Dean's ribs, 'later. With interest.'

'I can do that,' Dean says huskily, and it takes all of Castiel's rapidly diminishing willpower not to start undressing him right there and then. Instead, he cocks his head, hands stilled.

'You can do that _what_ , Mr Winchester?'

'Sir.' He gulps, eyes wide with lust. 'I can do that for you, sir.'

Leaning in, Cas kisses the hickie on his neck. ' _Very_ good. I look forward to it.'

The moment is interrupted by a pointed cough from the front desk, and Cas belatedly recalls that they are, in fact, in the middle of Dean's workplace. Trying not to look as sheepish as he feels, he turns to find Charlie staring at them, arms crossed and an eyebrow pointedly raised. She doesn't say anything; she doesn't have to. Castiel takes his hands away and steps back, while Dean, blushing furiously, bites his lip like he's trying to keep from laughing. They smile at each other, gazes locking for longer than is conducive to cooling things down, and Cas is actively fighting the impulse to kiss Dean when Dean moves in and kisses him instead, hands coming up to bracket his face as their bodies press together. It's aggressively hot and intimate, and Cas grabs his shirt, gripping the fabric hard enough to pin him there.

'Step away from the librarian, Cas. I have a spray bottle, and I'm not afraid to use it.'

It's Charlie again, much closer than before, and as they spring apart, Cas realises it's not an idle threat: she really is holding a water spritzer, and the nozzle is pointed at him.

'Why do you even have that?' he asks, dazedly.

'Window cleaning,' says Charlie, matter-of-factly, 'and as much as I'm inwardly cheering you guys on, if you start fooling around again, know that I can and will spray you like naughty kitties. Also, Dean, and contrary to the logic of bad porn, getting sexy on a broken photocopier doesn't magically fix it.' She tilts the bottle upwards, giving a warning spritz. 'Have I made myself clear?'

'Crystal,' says Dean. His grin is broad and utterly unrepentant, and when he looks across at Cas, he winks. 'Back to the salt mines, then,' he says, and gives Cas a defiant peck on the cheek before turning back to the copier.

Castiel tries to remember how air works, and only just succeeds. He blinks helplessly at Charlie, who points her spritzer bottle in the direction of his armchair.

'Go cool off, Romeo,' she says, not unkindly. 'You can still enjoy the view.'

Castiel takes her advice and what little remains of his dignity, and buries himself in Picasso until half past three, when Charlie comes over to tell him that they're going to start setting up for the launch.

'Sure,' he says. 'And, uh. Sorry. About earlier.'

Charlie snorts. 'Like hell you are.'

Despite himself, Cas smiles. 'You're right. I'm not. I'd do it again in a heartbeat.'

'Yeah, well, try to restrain yourself for another half hour, OK? Once the launch starts, I'm declaring Dean an official member of the public, and you can go be all goopy together, but until then, I need him at full table-lifting capacity.'

'I wasn't aware there was such a thing as a table-lifting capacity.'

'Well, there is, and seeing as how Ash and I have the collective upper body strength of a very buff mouse, we kinda need Dean on this.' She hesitates, seeming to weigh something up, and when she speaks again, her voice is different, quieter. 'I'm not stupid, you know.'

The change in tone catches Castiel off guard. 'I'm sorry?'

'What happened at lunch. I'm not stupid. I know Dean wasn't coming down, but he didn't look ready to tell me what was wrong, either. So I gave him an out.' She looks at Cas, brown eyes steady. 'I just... be careful, OK? He trusts you, and that's a big deal for him.'

'I understand,' says Cas.

'No, I don't think you do.' She crouches down beside him, elbows resting on the armrest. 'All joking aside, I've seen more of Dean today than in pretty much the entire time I've known him. I mean, we're friends, but even when we're out for drinks, he never really relaxes, you know? Like he's always on guard against something. Tenses up when you hug him, avoids crowds, doesn't cross his work streams – the whole nine. And then, today, he's draped all over you, he's going to you for help, he's been affectionate and vulnerable in public, and now he's out to everyone with eyes, which, sidebar, is a revelation from which I and my otherwise impeccable gaydar have yet to recover. I mean, seriously? How did I not see this?' She crinkles her nose, fingers flicking in irritated dismissal. 'Which is actually kinda the point. I've known him for years, I'm a card-carrying lesbian, and I never even suspected. And now, suddenly, here you are, and there he is, and I get this is new for the both of you, but so help me, if you hurt him, I will beat you with a shovel.'

Castiel blinks. 'Did you just Willow Rosenberg me?'

Charlie cracks a smile. 'Points for getting the reference. But no, yeah, if you fuck him up, I will fuck _you_ up.' And her smile gets just a little bit sharper.

'Noted,' says Castiel, whose deep respect for the wrath of tiny redheaded women was cemented at age fifteen, when he teased Anna in front of her crush and woke up to find she'd shaved his head in his sleep. 'Believe me, the last thing I want to do is hurt him. And for the record, I'm not usually like this, either.'

'Like what?'

'Publicly affectionate, for one thing. Impulsive, for another. I missed a day of work for him, and my boss was so worried, he phoned my brother, who drove to my house and shouted at me.'

She whistles, impressed. 'So, out of character, then?'

'Very.'

'Well, then.' She rocks back on her heels. 'Perhaps there's hope for the both of you, after all.'

And with that, she gets up and heads back to work, which apparently involves creating a display of the visiting author's books on the front counter. Cas looks around for Dean, and finds that he is indeed lifting tables, stacking them in a corner to clear more floor space. Even from a distance, the stretch of his muscles is evident beneath his shirt, and all at once, Castiel realises he is supremely disinterested in the prospect of a book launch. He doesn't know Dean well yet, but he wants to, and so far, they've been doing everything backwards, sex and angst and kink ahead of actually getting to know one another, and as they both have work tomorrow, he's going to make tonight count.

Pulling out his phone, he Googles the number of his favourite Italian place, the one with the awesome pizza, and makes them a booking for dinner. As he hangs up, Gabriel's final text catches his eye, and he winces, not wanting to bring up either his brother or Alistair Sharp with Dean, but not reasonably being able to put it off, either. Well, if he has to do it, then at least he can try and make it up to him with a good meal afterwards. He runs his hands over his thighs, abruptly nervous. Jesus, it's not like he's about to ask a complete stranger on a first date, except that he sort of is, even if the stranger in question is already his boyfriend.

Cas shuts his eyes, trying to steady himself. What else was it Gabriel said to him in that whole big speech about passion and repression? _When you finally do cut lose, you never know what to do with yourself._ And he doesn't, not really: since setting foot in the library, he's damn near run the gamut of his own emotional range, and it's left him feeling as wrung-out and tense as if he'd just worked for twenty straight hours. He wants to fuck Dean senseless against the nearest wall and take him out for a romantic dinner, wants to wake up next to him and paint with him and talk about kids with him (in a completely non-future-planning, purely speculative way, of course), wants to tie him up and make him beg and laugh with him and learn his secrets, none of which would be a problem if spaced out over a period of, say, months, but which is here compounded by Castiel's burning desire to do it all _right now_ , which is impossible, and therefore paralysing.

A warm hand lands on his shoulder, bringing him back to the moment. His eyes snap open, and there's Dean, smiling down at him like Castiel is a person who makes sense, and not a tightly-wound assemblage of wants and neuroses wrapped in jeans and a paint-splotched Henley.

'Hey,' says Dean. 'Sorry to keep you waiting. Did you fall asleep?'

Castiel's mouth is dry. 'Just resting my eyes,' he says, and before he can stop himself, he grabs Dean's other hand and hauls him onto his lap, fingers cupping his cheek as he guides him in for a kiss. Dean responds eagerly, humming against Cas's lips as he loops his arms around his neck, and Castiel kisses him with every impossible, conflicting need he can't put into words. He nips at Dean, breath shuddering between them, sliding his hands beneath his shirt and crushing their mouths together. When they finally come up for air, they're both panting; Cas gives a breathless laugh and leans his forehead on Dean's jaw.

'Hello to you, too,' he says, weakly.

'Jesus, Cas.' Dean runs a hand through Castiel's hair, his touch so light, Cas wonders if he's even conscious of doing it. 'Not that I'm complaining, but I think whatever that was could probably get us arrested in several states.'

'As long as this isn't one of them,' says Cas, 'I think we're good.' He tilts his head back, looking shyly up at Dean. 'Do you like pizza? It's all right if you'd rather not, but I reserved us a table for dinner tonight, if you think you might want –'

'Pizza sounds great,' says Dean. He tilts his head, considering. 'So, what time's the booking?'

'Seven thirty. I didn't know how long the launch would run, but –'

'Is it far? The place, I mean.'

'Not very,' says Cas, after a moment's thought. 'I mean, I can walk there from my apartment, so –'

'Then screw the launch,' says Dean. He leans in closer, and murmurs, 'After all, I've still got some customer service to make up, don't I? _Sir_.'

'You do,' says Cas, and runs a reverent hand across Dean's cheek. Fighting a sudden urge to engage in an act of unequivocal public indecency, he takes a deep breath and forces himself to add, 'But I think – I would like – to do things properly today. Take you out before I take you to bed.' He blushes, smiling. 'Have sex after dessert, and all that.'

Dean makes a sound that's halfway between groaning and laughter. 'You're driving me crazy, you know that?'

Pressing his lips to Dean's ear, Castiel murmurs wickedly, 'Maybe so. But I'll make it worth the wait.'

 


	11. Chapter 11

With the threat of Charlie's spritzer bottle still hanging over them and Cas determined to take him to dinner, Dean manages to keep things mainly PG, though after what Cas said to him at lunch, their encounter by the photocopier and then that mind-bending kiss, it's a near thing. As guests start to arrive for the launch, Dean peels himself out of Cas's lap and takes him on a tour of the library, which is less about the layout of the building than of the selection of books within it. To Dean's delight, Cas turns out to be a sci-fi fan, and they lose a solid twenty minutes talking about _Slaughterhouse-Five_  before they even get to the rest of their favourites. Cas vouches for the excellence of something called the Vorkosigan saga, which Dean promises to read, so long as Cas tries _Feed_ , because, dude, _zombie journalism_.

Despite this, however, Dean still tenses a little when they cross from the SFF section into YA: he's met far too many adults who instinctively snob teen authors, and he doesn't want Cas to be one of them. But his worries are soon proven groundless: Cas goes straight in to bat for _The Hunger Games_ and _Little Brother_ , making it easy for Dean to tell him how much he loves curating this particular section, and about Charlie's new YA book review blog, which Cas says he'll look up _._ The conversation is so easy, Dean even starts talking about Krissy, a tough-as-nails girl who comes in every week or so and raids the YA shelves for pretty much everything she can lay her hands on, and how she'd been going to drop out of school until Dean convinced her to stay on. Now, she runs a reading group for younger kids in her neighbourhood, and when she brings them in, they follow her around like ducklings who've imprinted on a wolverine. Midway through, he realises he's gushing a bit and apologises, because YA fan or not, there's no way Cas wants to hear Dean talk about some random kids.

Except, apparently, he does. Cas urges him on, saying all the right things in praise of Dean and Krissy both, and then they're in with the picture books, and Dean almost sinks through the floor in embarrassment when he realises Cas saw him reading to Ben and Emma.

'Oh, god, don't even say it, I'm a total dork.'

Cas laughs. 'That's actually the last thing I was thinking, but if you insist –'

'No, no! I just, uh –' goddamit, he's blushing so hard that even his _hair_ feels warm, '– it's, well, on Saturdays, I usually do storytime, but I wasn't here yesterday and neither were they, and the Braedens are regulars, so –'

'Dean.' Cas squeezes his hand, and even that single, brief touch has him catching his breath. 'You read them a story, and it was adorable, and you don't have to apologise. Besides, you know I've got a soft spot for twins.'

'Oh,' says Dean, who'd somehow managed to forget this fact. 'Yeah. That makes sense.'

They fall quiet then, in deference to the fact that the visiting author, whose name Dean has somehow managed to forget, has started reading aloud from his book. Dean tries his best to listen attentively, but the second Cas loops an arm around his waist, those long, lean fingers curling over his hip, he completely loses the ability to focus. An unfamiliar warmth spreads through his stomach, and he's startled to realise that, for all he can't wait to get Cas into bed again, he also doesn't want to go home yet, either. Even if Cas is just being polite about the kid stuff, the fact that he's willing to listen at all is somehow wonderful: an intimacy Dean didn't know he wanted, let alone needed. Smiling, he puts his arm around Cas in turn, and when the shorter man rests his head on Dean's shoulder, Dean leans on him, too, his cheek pressed to Cas's temple.

There's a round of applause as the reading ends, and Dean disentangles from Cas for long enough to join in, though he didn't catch more than a sentence or two.

'Want to get out of here?' Cas says, over the subsequent buzz of conversation.

Dean grins. 'I thought you'd never ask.'

They say their goodbyes to Charlie and Ash – the latter looks Cas over once, then shoots Dean an approving thumbs up – and head out to the car. It's chill, but not windy, and once they've buckled up, Cas puts the heater on.

'It's still a bit early,' he says, as the Boxster purrs into life, 'but I thought we could park the car at home and walk to dinner instead. At my home, I mean. At the apartment.' He runs a hand through his hair, and if Dean didn't know any better, he'd think Cas was nervous. 'But if you wanted, um, we could stop by your place first. Pick up some clean clothes for tomorrow, maybe.'

Dean grins. 'You inviting me to sleep over, Cas?'

'I'd be happy to stay with you instead –'

Dean laughs. 'Your place is fine. But grabbing my stuff would be good, yeah.'

Though Dean offers to navigate, Cas finds his way to the house from memory, pulling up on the opposite curb.

'Wait here,' says Dean, 'I'll just be a minute,' and hops out before Cas can object. As he walks to the door, a guilty pang goes through him. He kept Cas waiting outside that morning, too, claiming it was because they were running late, but once he's inside, the truth is impossible to avoid. Cas's apartment is gorgeous, well-furnished and beautifully maintained, and Dean's house is... not so much. He's embarrassed by the number of empty cans and bottles littering the coffee table and kitchen bench, the dirty clothes thrown over the couch, the unscrubbed plates in the sink. He tries to straighten up a bit as he goes, but he's conscious of keeping Cas waiting, and besides which, it's not like the place looks that great tidy, either. Most of his furniture is either curbside salvage or cheap flatpack stuff; the books in his shelves, though much loved, are almost universally battered, secondhand paperbacks, and junk from his various hobbies and DIY projects is littered all over the place.

Ducking through to the bedroom, he picks up his work boots, socks, a change of boxers, a pair of jeans and a mostly-clean shirt, shoving them all into a duffle bag. On impulse, he also grabs his spare toothbrush from the bathroom, then hurries back out to the car, where Cas greets him with a raised eyebrow.

'Sorry,' says Dean, getting in ahead of him. He gulps, shoving the bag in the footwell. 'I didn't mean to, uh, keep you out. It's just, my place is kind of a mess.'

Cas laughs. 'I'm not going to put on my little white gloves and check the shelves for dust, Dean.' He leans over, giving him a gentle kiss. 'Besides, I'm sure it's fine.'

Dean's cheeks burn as they pull away. 'I just don't have many people over, you know. I mean – god, I have friends, it's not like I don't have _friends_ , but we usually just go out for drinks, and – ' He realises he's babbling and stops, gripping his knees. 'Anyway,' he says, taking refuge in a change of topic, 'So, you ever sell any of your paintings? Like, in a gallery or whatever?'

The question seems to catch Cas off guard. 'I was part of an exhibition back in college, but since then, no.'

Dean blinks at him. 'Why the hell not, man? Your stuff is amazing! You should sell it, or, I don't know, freelance or something. Or do book covers! I can totally see your stuff rocking sales in the fantasy section. Like that new piece, the Orpheus one, you've got a real nice Luis Royo vibe going on there, but with a bit of H. R. Giger, too, you know?'

'I –' Cas looks stunned, mouth hanging open a little as they pull into traffic. 'I don't quite know what to say to that. Um. I love Royo's work. So thank you. But it really is just a hobby.'

'Yeah, right.' Dean snorts, but there's a tightness to Cas's shoulders that wasn't there before, so he reaches over and squeezes his leg, trying to take the sting out of it. He can't bear the thought of upsetting him, and he doesn't understand why Cas is so dismissive of his art. 'I mean it, Cas. You should sell your work, or at least show it to people. Charlie spends a bunch of time online, and she says lots of artists now have, like, art blogs and stuff, and pages on tumblr and Deviantart, and there's this whole community where people support each other, like a mix of amateurs and professionals and whatever. You should give it a try.'

'But I'm not –' he sounds almost pained, wrenching the wheel a little harder than necessary as they turn the corner, '– I mean, I'm not really good with computers, Dean, I wouldn't know where to start –'

'Honestly, neither would I. But Charlie sure does, and I'm sure she'd walk you through it, if you asked her.'

'You're starting to sound like Gabriel.'

'Well, your brother may be a dick in all other respects, but if he's trying to get you to art more in public, too, then no offence taken.'

Castiel laughs, a choking snort. ' _Art more in public?_ Really?' And then he smacks a palm on the wheel, a mixture of irritation and apology flashing across his features. 'Ugh, that reminds me. Gabriel texted me earlier about meeting with you at noon on Tuesday. Are you free?'

'Meeting with – oh.' Dean curls his hands in his lap, a cold, ugly feeling creeping through his gullet. 'Right. Alistair.'

'I'm sorry. I shouldn't have – damn.' Cas hits the wheel again, though whether he's more frustrated with Gabriel, himself or the whole situation, Dean can't tell. 'You're not obliged to help him, you know. I can tell him you've changed your mind, and he can deal with it like an adult.'

'No, it's fine. Really.' Dean forces himself to smile. 'I mean, it'll suck, and I'll probably need a recovery blowjob afterwards, but it's important, you know? Alistair's not a good guy, and if I can help hold him accountable, then I should.' He stares fixedly at the dashboard, trying to swallow against the knot in his throat. 'Besides, I've fucked up this sort of thing too many times already. Gotta pay my debts.'

'No, you don't.' Cas guns the Porsche through a yellow light, the engine revving angrily. 'You don't owe this to anybody, Dean, least of all Gabriel.'

'And what about me, huh? Can't I owe it to myself?' He feels almost dizzy, fear and anger coursing through him in equal measure. 'I've got my own damn reasons for wanting Alistair to get what's coming to him, and you don't get to sit there and tell me they don't matter, that I don't –' He bites off the sentence, scared of what he might say if he keeps going. Reflexively, he wraps his arms around his stomach, hunching in on himself. 'I need to,' he says, softly.

'Oh.' Castiel reaches over, stroking his knuckles against Dean's knee until he looks up again. 'Whatever you want to do, of course, you have my support. I just don't want you to feel as if you're doing penance.' He bites his lip, those blue eyes irresistible. 'I'm truly sorry, Dean. I didn't mean to be insensitive.'

'No, it's not your fault. I shouldn't have snapped.' He tries for a watery smile, and finds a drier one than he expected. 'Can we start over?'

They pull up at a set of lights, and Cas takes advantage of the pause to lean across and kiss him. 'Of course.'

The rest of the way to Cas's building, they talk about books, and by the time they pull up in the underground garage, Dean is back on an even keel. They take the lift up together in silence, lingering in the apartment only for as long as it takes to put Dean's duffle in the bedroom and his toothbrush by the sink, and then they head back down again, out into the darkening street.

They head off walking, shoulder to shoulder in the crisp air. After a moment, Dean plucks up his courage and tangles their fingers together, and the smile Cas gives him as he squeezes his hand makes something twist in his chest. God, it's not like any of this is simple – it's all too new and fraught and wonderful for that – but somehow, impossibly, Cas makes it feel easy.

The restaurant is called Marco's, and though they arrive early, it's quiet enough that they're seated straight away. The décor manages to be cozy and spacious all at once, with its mix of wooden furniture and warm, amber walls, and the smell of fresh pizza coming from the kitchen is enough to make Dean's mouth water. The waiter seats them at a table opposite the bar, then asks if they want any drinks. Dean isn't usually much for wine, but it feels like that sort of an evening, so when Cas suggests getting a bottle, he agrees to share. The waiter smiles approvingly, and as Cas picks out a cabernet something-or-other, Dean realises he can't remember the last time he went on an actual, honest-to-god date, which raises the awkward possibility that he's never, in fact, been on one. Or at least, not with a guy – he took out girls in high school, back when he was still trying to figure himself out – but even with all his closeted guilt over Aaron, it somehow doesn't seem possible that he managed to get through college without either buying or being bought a single crappy dinner.

'Penny for your thoughts?' Cas asks, jolting him out of his stupor.

Sheepishly, Dean rubs his neck. 'I was just, uh... I was trying to think if I'd ever, you know. Done this. The dinner thing.' He waves a hand to indicate the restaurant. 'It's nice.'

'I'm glad you like it,' Cas says, and his tone is so sincere that Dean melts a little.

'How do you do that?' he asks.

'Do what?'

'Make me feel normal. Like there's nothing wrong with me.'

'Well, there's not.'

'You know what I mean. You're not even a little weirded out that I've never really dated?'

'Why should I be? You're here now.' And he smiles, his eyes crinkling at the edges.

Before Dean can reply, the waiter returns with their wine, showing the bottle to Cas and pouring a tiny amount in his glass as a taster. Cas gives Dean a conspiratorial wink and falls straight into the role of wine connoisseur, feigning seriousness as he lifts his glass, sniffs and sips. To the waiter's solemn approval, Cas deems the bottle up to scratch, giving such a slow, lofty nod that Dean struggles to keep a straight face. Somehow, he manages to order dinner without cracking up, but the second the waiter is gone again, he bursts out laughing.

'Oh man, that was priceless!'

Cas grins. 'I know nothing about wine, but if you order the second cheapest bottle and nod seriously when they bring it over, it seems to convey the appropriate degree of competence.' He nods at Dean's now-full glass. 'What do you think of it?'

'Hmm.' Dean picks up the glass, twirling the stem between his fingers. Aping Cas's mannerisms, he peers at the contents, swills the wine, and takes a tentative mouthful. 'Nice, full bodied. Tastes like... hipster flannel. Red flannel, to be precise. Also grapes.'

Cas's laughter catches him mid-sip; he snorts into his glass, choking on half-swallowed wine. 'You ass!' he says, wiping his mouth, and kicks Dean playfully in the leg.

Dean reciprocates, and suddenly they're playing footsie under the table, which is completely ridiculous, because who actually does that? Almost, he says so out loud, but then Cas's foot slides gently up the back of his calf, and the words freeze in his throat. Palms braced flat on the table, Dean looks at Cas, who looks steadily back, his expression both soft and intense as he strokes his leg, and Jesus, there's no way that should be sexy, right? But it's like Cas has the cheat codes to Dean's sexuality, like he's been playing him on god mode from minute one: whatever he tries seems bound to work, which is both scary-thrilling and arousing as all hell, and so Dean just sits there, semi-hard and dazed, until Cas says, 'You know, one of us should probably say something.'

'I'm trying,' Dean says, 'but you're, uh... you're pretty distracting.'

Smiling, Cas pulls his foot away. 'Better?'

'A little,' Dean admits. 'You... shit, Cas, I can't even think straight around you.'

Cas crooks a finger, leaning in over the table. Curious, Dean leans in, too, and shivers as Cas lips his ear. 'Lucky we're not straight, then,' he says, and cups Dean's cheek, and kisses him. It only lasts a moment – they're too far away from each other for more – but Dean groans and leans into it all the same, the table hard against his ribs, and when he sits back again, he's flushed, aching for more. A trio of younger twentysomethings stares at them from across the room, their expressions ranging from surprise to mild disgust. Cas follows Dean's gaze, frowns slightly, and then pokes out his tongue at the most disapproving of the three, a wide-eyed blonde girl, eliciting a squeak as she ducks behind her menu. The other two look away, too, and when Cas turns back to Dean, he rolls his eyes.

'Idiots,' he mutters. And then, as he scans Dean's face, 'Are you OK?'

'Yeah,' says Dean, shrugging. 'I mean, they're strangers. What do I care, right? The guys at the garage, though – not sure how it's all gonna go over with them tomorrow.' He sighs, rubbing his neck. 'Or with Sammy, for that matter. I mean, we've never really talked about this kinda thing, and I know he's all Mr Liberal Arts Stanford Guy these days, but that's no guarantee he won't freak out on me, you know?' He blinks, suddenly curious. 'Hey, how was it for you? The whole coming out thing? I mean, Gabe's into guys, too, so did that make it easier, or harder?'

Castiel laughs. 'It was... interesting. As much as he'd like to claim otherwise, Gabriel wasn't the sexual trailblazer in our family – that was all Luke's doing, and he knows it.' He leans back, lips curved in amusement. 'They're fraternal twins, not identical, and let's just say that puberty made their differences pretty obvious. Luke hit six foot when they were still fifteen, but Gabriel's shorter than both of us, and he didn't get his growth spurt for another year. And Luke's always been... I'm trying to think of a better word than rebellious, because that implies a sort of moral conviction – chaotic, maybe?'

'More chaotic than Gabriel?' Dean asks, raising an eyebrow.

'Infinitely so.'

He whistles. 'Man, your family is _nuts_.'

'You have no idea,' Cas says, dryly.

Dean chuckles. 'So, what did Luke get up to, then?'

'Let me put it this way,' says Cas. 'Once, when Anna and Michael were off at camp and our parents were out of town, I came home and found him having an orgy in the living room with several young women, my history teacher, and at least three members of the football team.' He shudders. 'I never sat on that couch again.'

Dean's jaw drops. 'You're not serious.'

Cas's expression is equal parts fond reminiscence and old exasperation. 'Luke at eighteen was a fearsome thing. He was voracious, always keen to try anything with anyone – and still is, I suspect, though he's grown more discreet around family. But back then, it was a game to him; he played because he could. Our parents have always been conservative, stern, but Luke was never afraid of them, not even when we were little. It's like he thought the whole idea of parents was a challenge. He'd bring home boys and girls – older or younger than him, it didn't matter – and from the time he was sixteen, he'd arrange, literally _arrange,_ to get caught in the act with them, just to see the reactions.'

'Holy shit, dude. What did your parents do?'

Castiel grins, a little more sharply than before. 'Yelled, mostly, though I do recall some very frosty silences and a good deal of financial withholding. If he'd been the only queer child, they'd probably have kicked him out – things were certainly headed that way – but then Gabriel started bringing home quiet, handsome boys with expensive haircuts and good manners, and they seemed to reach the convenient decision that fiscal conservatism was more important than the religious kind, for all that they named three of us after angels. They still clashed with Luke, of course, because he made it impossible not to, but by the time I started dating, I think they'd more or less resigned themselves to the inevitable. And then, when Anna introduced us to her first boyfriend, our mother actually cried at the prospect of one day having biological grandchildren, which was... awkward, given that Anna and the boy in question were both in the room, and all of fifteen at the time.'

Dean stares at him. 'That is messed up. Like, Jerry Springer level messed up.'

'That's the Novak clan in a nutshell, I'm afraid.' Cas shrugs, the gesture wryly apologetic. 'Honestly, I think Michael's the only one of us who's halfway normal, and he's a marine. Which is ironic, given that he's the token straight brother. Gabriel thinks it's hilarious, but then again, he also thinks _he's_ funny, so he's not exactly the best judge of humour.'

'Brothers never are,' says Dean, grinning. 'I mean, _my_ jokes are gold, but does Sam laugh at them?'

'You said he's at Stanford?' Cas asks. 'What's he studying?'

'Originally, he wanted to go into law,' Dean says, unable to keep the fondness from his tone, 'but he ended up switching to veterinary science. Which isn't surprising, really. Kid's smart, and he loves animals. I'm proud of him.'

'I'm not surprised. You obviously care for him a great deal.' Cas smiles. 'You Winchesters are an eclectic pair, if you don't mind my saying – one librarian-mechanic, and one nearly-lawyer-turned-nearly-vet.'

'Oh, like you're one to talk.' Dean holds up a hand, counting Novaks off on his fingers. 'What about your lot? Michael's in the navy, Anna does –?'

'Child psychology,' Cas supplies. 'Given what she grew up with, I can hardly blame her.'

'– right, and then there's you, the artist-slash-accountant –'

'I prefer accountant-slash-artist.'

'– Gabriel's a lawyer,' Dean continues, ignoring the correction, 'and Luke runs a... seedy gay nightclub? Jesus. You're like the Dark Bradys, or something.'

'That's a terrifying thought,' says Cas – and then, groaning, 'God, does that make me Jan? I don't want to be Jan, Dean.'

He laughs. 'You're not. I'm pretty sure that's Gabriel role.'

'Which would make Luke Marsha.' He shakes his head, mock-wistful. 'And here we've all been wasting time calling him Lucifer.'

For no reason that he can articulate, the name makes Dean's pulse quicken. 'You really call him that?'

'Sometimes, yes. It's sort of a family joke. The first time he walked in on one of Luke's _liaisons,_ our father said the devil was in him; so Luke, of course, turned it right around and started going by Lucifer. We only really use it when he's being a complete shit – _Lucifer's on form today_ , that sort of thing – but he keeps it up with everyone else. It's why he called his club Dante's – you know, circles of hell, _Paradise Lost_ , all that. He never was one for subtlety.'

As before, Dean is saved from having to respond by the fortuitous return of the waiter, who serves their respective pizzas with a smile and a flourish. The food is delicious, and they both set to with a will, swapping slices rather than sticking purely to their own orders. Even given his total lack of experience with dates, Dean knows this is a good one, and whenever he looks up at Cas, he feels that wanting itch in his skin, a thrill that's almost surreal. But the name _Lucifer_ has lodged itself in his memory, niggling at him even when he tries to set it aside. He doesn't know why, and he doesn't want to think about it, either, but it's like tonguing a loose tooth – part of him can't help it, and it adds a single, unpleasant note to an otherwise perfect evening.

They finish the wine and top off the pizza with tiramisu, which is damn near the best that Dean's ever had, trading more harmless anecdotes about their respective siblings. Afterwards, they split the bill, but Cas insists on taking care of the tip, which Dean allows only on the condition that he gets it next time.

'Deal,' says Cas, and they leave the restaurant hand in hand, the same way they came in.

It's colder on the walk home, and all at once, Dean starts to feel that familiar, you're-coming-down-with-something ache in the back of his throat. He tries to ignore it – he'd felt sick that morning, but it went away by the time he reached work, and he's been quietly hoping to escape any actual illness – but it persists the whole way back, and he starts sneezing the second they hit the lobby of Cas's building, the change in temperature making him shiver all over.

Cas puts a hand to his forehead. 'You feel hot,' he says, concerned. 'You should've said something earlier, Dean. I could have called us a cab.'

'What are you, my –' Dean sneezes again, more violently than before, '– mother? Damn. _Damn_ it.' He sniffs, the sound both angry and pathetic. 'I'm not sick. I refuse to be sick.'

Cas kisses his cheek and users him into the lift, an arm around his waist. 'You're cute when you're stubborn.'

'I'm not stubborn.' Dean leans into him, craving warmth. 'And I'm definitely _not_ sick, either.'

By the time they reach the apartment, his head is starting to throb, the same feverish ache he felt on waking creeping into his muscles. Though he puts up a token resistance, he lets Cas feed him the same mix of vitamins and cold tablets he took after his walk in the rain, inwardly cursing his crappy, traitorous immune system.

'Go sit down,' says Cas, nodding towards the couch. 'I'll be there in a minute.'

'OK,' Dean mumbles. Kicking off his shoes, he settles on the (extremely comfortable) leather lounge, protesting only feebly as Cas drapes a mohair blanket over his legs. There's a flatscreen TV opposite, and when Cas puts the remote in his hand, Dean starts flicking through the channels.

'Try Netflix,' Cas calls from the kitchen, and Dean complies, but rather than picking out something new, he ends up chuckling over the contents of Cas's 'Recently Watched' list instead.

'Did you seriously watch a whole documentary on knitting?'

'I did, and I make no apologies for it.' Smiling, Cas walks over and pushes a mug in his hand. 'Here. Drink this. And move over, will you? You're hogging the space.'

Dean shuffles over, staring at the unfamiliar beverege. 'What is it?'

'Honey and lemon. It'll help your throat.' Cas squeezes in beside him, sliding arm around Dean as his free hand grabs the remote. 'Also, quit mocking my viewing choices. I'm not above making you watch _Mama Mia_.'

'You are such a jerk –' Dean says, then stops, completely arrested by the look of teasing fondness on Cas's face. He breathes in the scent of lemon and honey, gentle warmth transferring itself from the mug to his hands, from Cas's arm to his back, and when his throat tightens again, it has nothing to do with illness. 'You're a jerk, Cas,' he says again, softly, and settles his head on his shoulder.

Cas pulls him in close and kisses his temple. 'I'm a jerk,' he agrees, 'and you know what else? I wasn't joking about _Mama Mia_. Pick something out, or prepare to be Meryl Streeped.'

Dean laughs, rubbing his cheek against Cas's Henley. His tattoos are just visible through the half-open collar, and it's like getting a tiny glimpse of god. 'Anything but that.' He takes a sip of the lemon and honey drink, which is surprisingly good, and says, 'Do you have _Die Hard_ on there?'

'I think so.' Cas thumb the remote, and says, almost shyly, 'Is it good? I've never actually seen it.'

'Are you kidding me?' Dean lifts his head, a slow smile spreading across his face. 'Oh, man. You are in for a treat.'

Curled up together, they watch the film, though Dean spends at least half the time watching Cas, too, delighting in his reactions. They stretch out, fingers weaving together when Dean sets down the empty mug, and by the time the credits roll, he's lying with his head on Cas's chest, their legs tangled under the blanket. It's the strangest feeling, because even though he's still demonstrably sick – he's had several sneezing fits, his joints ache when he moves, and he's started to cough – everything else is so comfortable, it hardly seems to matter.

As the menu comes back up again, Dean lets his eyes slip shut, snuggling back into Cas without a second thought.

'Oh, no you don't.' Cas kisses his ear, giving him a gentle squeeze. 'Get up and come to bed.'

'Can't. I'm too comfy.'

'The bed has pillows.'

'You're a pillow.'

'I'm a pillow with pins and needles.'

'Pincushion, then. Heh.' Dean grins, coughing a little. 'Told you I'm funny.'

'You're hysterical. Now get up.' And he starts to push his legs off the edge of the couch, dragging Dean along with him. Dean groans in protest, but Cas is merciless, and in the end, it's stand or fall. He lurches upright, and almost sits straight back down again, he's that dizzy. He sways, wincing as his headache returns.

'I'm not sick,' he says, as though saying it often enough might make it true. 'I have work tomorrow.'

'One thing at a time, Winchester. Sleep first, work later.'

Still making piteous noises, Dean staggers in to the bathroom, where he somehow manages to get through his evening routine without falling down or tripping over Cas, who rolls his eyes and accepts his bumbling in good grace.

'Promise you won't let me miss work,' Dean says, as he climbs into bed. They're both naked, Cas pausing to fiddle with his phone alarm before sliding in beside him. 'Or wake me up on time, at least.'

'If you insist,' says Cas, kissing the back of his neck. 'I'll drive you.'

'Thanks,' says Dean, and it's only then, as he feels the full, gorgeous warmth of Cas press up against his back, that he remembers how he'd planned on ending the evening. A small groan escapes him at the missed opportunity.

'What is it?'

'There was meant to be seducing.'

'And who says there hasn't been?' Another kiss, warm on his shoulder. 'I'm feeling pretty seduced.'

'You know what I mean.' Dean rolls in his arms, putting them face to face. Hesitantly, he asks, 'You're not disappointed?'

Rather than answer straight away, Cas reaches up and snugs the comforter more tightly around Dean's shoulders, kissing the tip of his nose. 'I'm not disappointed, Dean. And as much as I want you to feel better soon, there's no rush. We've got plenty of time.' And then, more quietly, 'I'm not going anywhere.'

Dean reaches up, stroking his thumb across the plane of Cas's cheek. 'Me, neither,' he whispers.

Their noses bump in the dark as their mouths slot gently together. The kiss is slow, a teasing friction of soft, warm lips, exploratory and sweet. They sigh, foreheads touching, tongues flicking almost lazily as Dean walks his weary fingers up Castiel's flank, ribs, spine. He's aroused, but comfortably so, the coiling warmth more simmer than burn. There's no pressure to any of it, nothing but easy intimacy, and Dean relaxes into it like a cat in a sunbeam, letting his eyes fall closed to the sound of Cas's heartbeat. Dean drifts cleanly into sleep, as warm and safe as he's felt in years.

At first, he dreams vaguely, nonsense and colours and snippets of things all jumbled together, a bright, harmless babble. But his waking walls are there for a reason, and with those barriers down, his dreaming starts to twist out of true, anxiety replacing ease, a thread of discord stitching together scenes that unsettle him, old panic hot in the back of his throat, as coppery-bright as blood. The nightmare builds and breaks over him like a cresting wave, and Dean is helpless, shuddering as he goes under.

_Voices and hands, long-fingered, hard. A white flash, lights poured overhead and stuttering red through closed lids heavy as stones, his blood is numb but his bones are air and he can't move, lolling in a grip that drags and pinches, laughter in his ear like teeth._

_'– you're perverse, you know that?'_

_'Then stop watching.'_

_'Oh, he liked that. Do it again.'_

_Trembling, shoved under and it all goes dark, but the wrongness is there in his ribs like ice, and lower than his ribs, within and under and all around, hands and laughter and a cold, sharp burn, wasps in his head and heart, and then he's back again and no, no, he won't be back for this, let it fall back, fall away under, good pet, just like that._

_'– did I fucking stutter? No bruises. No marks but mine.'_

_'It's barely even a scratch.'_

_'– like a fucking angel, want to –'_

_'– my turn, not yours –'_

_'Fucking Lucifer, I swear –'_

_Breaking. Rising into pain and out of it, into light and down again where hell is hands and he doesn't know, he wakes and he doesn't remember, he remembers being afraid but not why, not when he's awake and it's fine, it's all fine, but underneath is blood and bile and choking ash, he's choking, he's choking, he's choking and he won't look, can't look can't make me won't no god please don't –_

'Dean!'

He spasms awake mid-sob, cheeks wet with tears, fighting the arms around him out of instinctive terror, gasping into the dark.

'Dean, it's me, it's Cas, it's _Cas_ , you're all right, please be all right, please, it's a nightmare, I've got you, please –'

'Cas?' he croaks, and all at once, he comes back to himself, sweaty and shaking and weak with relief, because it was just a dream, just a bad dream, he's fine. Over and over, he babbles it into Cas's shoulder – _I'm fine, I had a bad dream, I'm fine_ – but clings to him as though it were something different, as though Cas is the only real thing left in the world.

'I've got you,' Cas says again, 'Dean, I've got you, I promise,' and cards his fingers through his hair, kissing his cheek and jaw and neck and anywhere else he can reach, pulling him back beneath the blankets, warming him, holding him close. Dean's pulse slows from jackhammer to metronome, his stomach still churning sickly.

'I'm sorry,' he whispers. 'Cas, I'm so fucked up, I'm sorry.'

'Shh. Don't apologise. Here.' Cas shifts position, rolling them onto their sides. 'Do you want to talk about it?'

Dean shakes his head, tight and fierce. 'No. Just a bad dream. That's it.'

'OK. All right.' Cas kisses his eyelids. 'Can I get you anything? Water?'

'No, stay here. Please, stay.'

'All right.'

Cas strokes along his back, gentle and soothing. Kind hands, not hard. Dean takes a shuddering breath, and shrugs off the dream like cobwebs. His head hurts, and he's sick and tired and feverish, and even if he wanted to stay awake and fret, he couldn't.

Dean shuts his eyes, and somewhere between one minute and the next, he falls back asleep.

He doesn't dream again.

 


	12. Chapter 12

Castiel wakes before his alarm. Unusually, he feels more anxious than bleary, and as soon as he glances across at Dean, he remembers why. Cas had been fast asleep when the nightmare hit, and by the time he stumbled his way into consciousness, Dean was thrashing violently, crying and whimpering in fear of some unknown terror. Cas soothed him as best he could, and eventually, Dean slept again, but Castiel lay awake for much longer, unable to decide whether he should be worried or not. Dean was sick, and nightmares are a common aspect of fever; even without the complicating factor of a traumatic personal history, bad dreams are nothing uncommon. Sure, it had been distressing, but that didn't mean Cas ought to go reading things into it.

But Dean had seemed more than just distressed. He'd been terrified, sobbing, and the hitch in his voice as he'd said _it's just a dream_ , over and over, like he was trying to convince himself of the fact had just about broken Castiel's heart. He wants to fix it, but he doesn't know if there really is anything _to_ fix, and even if there is, how do you ask about something like that? Dean might not even remember what it was he dreamed about.

Beside him, the alarm goes off – a tinny rendition of _Build 'Em Up, Buttercup_ , for which Cas once more has Gabriel to thank – and Dean makes a sleepy noise of protest, burrowing his face into the pillow. A surge of affection washes through Cas. Shutting off the alarm, he slides over to Dean, fingers tracing a muscular arm as he kisses along his back.

'G'way,' Dean mumbles. 'Sleepy.'

Castiel nips his shoulder. 'You made me promise to wake you.'

'Mmmph.'

'Are you sick, or just tired?' He runs a palm along Dean's side, eliciting a shiver. 'If you're sick, you should stay home.'

'Not sick.' Dean rolls onto his back and pulls Cas down for a lazy kiss, and when they break apart, he's smiling. 'I feel fine.' He reaches up, brushing at Cas's hair, and chuckles. 'You always look like you just rolled out of bed.'

'We're still in bed,' Cas points out.

'True.' Dean stretches beneath him, lithe and inviting, then ruins it by coughing. 'Damn. So maybe I'm still a _little_ sick.'

Cas laughs, giving him a peck on the cheek. 'Then stay. I'll play hooky and make you soup.'

Dean makes a pained purr, wrapping his arms around Cas's back. 'God, I wish. I need the shift. I have to go.' But he doesn't try to get up, instead nuzzling Cas's neck. They move languidly against each other, kissing and touching like they have all the time in the world, and Castiel marvels at his own lack of urgency. He has a meeting first thing, and if he's going to shower, shave and drop Dean off at his garage in peak-hour traffic, he ought to be scrambling. But he can't seem to make himself care, a small voice whispering that he can still stay home even if Dean doesn't, take a day to work on his painting, maybe even sketch something new.

 _Stop it. Art doesn't pay for itself._ Cas knows that; it's the basis for his entire life. Abruptly, he pulls away from Dean, leaning back on his elbows. 'I should really get up,' he says, voice flat.

'What's wrong?' Dean asks. 'Are you OK?' And then, eyes widening, 'If it's about last night, I swear, I'm not usually like that, I don't –'

Cas pales, realising too late how his change in mood must seem. He rolls back over to Dean, kissing him gently. 'Hey, no, I'm sorry. It's not you, I promise. I just wish we didn't have work.' He takes a breath, searching those green eyes for clues, and adds, 'You did give me a scare, though. Are you sure you're all right?'

Fear flashes over Dean's face, fast as summer lightning. 'I'm fine,' he says, gulping. 'Honestly, Cas, it was just a stupid dream. Don't know why I was so freaked out, it's not like it made any sense anyway.'

But he's breathing faster even talking about it, his cheeks pale, and Cas knows neither of them is fooled. 'I promise, you can tell me.'

'I can't. I mean, there's no point.' He turns away, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. 'It's just an old nightmare, Cas. It doesn't mean anything.'

'Dean –'

'We need to get ready for work,' he says, and flees into the hall, leaving Cas to fall back against the mattress. He shuts his eyes, trying to sort through the jumble of feelings snarled in his throat. Logically, he knows, he can't be everything to Dean, can't act as though he's entitled to poke his every wound; has no right to demand his secrets at all, let alone so soon. The fact that Dean already trusts him as much as he does is astonishing, bordering on miraculous – the last thing Cas ought to do is press. _He's a person, not a project, you stupid man. What happened to restraint?_ But oh, god, the thought of him hurting; of not being able to help –

Cas climbs out of bed and strides into the bathroom. Dean is already in the shower, and at the sound of Cas's approach, he turns, a look on his face that's half fear, half hope.

'I'm sorry,' Cas says, and closes the distance between them, kissing him deeply. Dean moans into his mouth, pressing against him. They rut and lick at each other, hands everywhere, panting through the steam – and then, without warning, Dean shoves Cas up against the tiles and sucks his throat, a biting, possessive kiss. The combination renders Cas hard and gasping, head tipped back as Dean's hand slides along his shaft, hot and wet, his fingers tangling in his hair. Dimly, it occurs to him that the dynamic between them has flipped, but Castiel runs with it, groaning as Dean takes control.

'You like that, Cas?' Dean murmurs. He sucks another mark onto his throat, hard enough to hurt, and Castiel whimpers assent, thrusting urgently into Dean's fist. 'God, you're unbelievable, you know that?'

'Dean,' Cas gasps, unable to say anything else; he's pinned there, shaking with need and something more than that, something he can't name. His breath is loud in his own ears, and a third bite from Dean has him trembling on the edge, but in the end, what tips him over is a gentle brush of lips on his ear, and the soft exhalation that follows it. He comes hard, bucking his hips, and as Dean lets him up, Cas falls against him, arms wrapped around his neck. Water slicks them both, warm and cleansing.

Dean's grip tightens. 'What was that, Cas? What did I just do?'

Castiel kisses his shoulder. 'Nothing I didn't want.'

'I bit you.' He pulls back a little, tracing the marks on Cas's throat. 'Jesus, I really bit you.'

Cas takes his hand and kisses Dean's fingertips. 'You did,' he says. 'And I liked it.' He tilts his head, smiling. 'Didn't you?'

'A little too much, maybe.' He sucks in breath. 'Should we, I mean – can we talk about this? Tonight, maybe?'

'Of course,' says Cas. 'But in the mean time –' his hands roam lower, '– let me take care of you, too.'

Dean shudders in response, leaning eagerly into the touch. He doesn't last much longer than Cas did, but even once he's spent, they still wind up twined together, both as eager as if they've had no relief. It's with extreme reluctance that Cas remembers they have jobs to get to – jobs for which they are now in danger of running late – and gets them back to reality. Or tries to, anyway: even once they're out of the shower, they can't seem to break apart, and patting each other dry only makes it worse.

'This is ridiculous,' Cas pants, as Dean presses him up against the bathroom door, kissing hungrily at his tattoos. It's like being worshipped, and it's driving him crazy. 'We're adults, we should – _mmm_ – fuck! – we should be more – _ahhh_ –' Dean dips his head, tongue flicking a nipple, '– restrained, we should –' Cas digs his fingers into Dean's hair and yanks him up, sucking fiercely on his bottom lip while Dean grips his ass, grinding them together. They're both hard again, refractory period be damned, all yesterday's pent-up wanting spilling over into now, and Cas forgets what he was going to say in favour of gasping out, '– quit our jobs and I swear to fucking god, Dean, if you don't bend me over and fuck me right the hell now, we're going to have a problem, because –'

The rest of the sentence is lost as Castiel fumbles the door open; they stagger into the hall, grabbing frantically at each other as Dean steers them over to the bed. The mattress hits the backs of Cas's legs, and he turns over, Dean's hands sliding up his thighs as he gets on his hands and knees. There's a brief loss of contact as Dean grabs the lube, and then his knees are nudging Cas's legs further apart, a slick finger pressing into him. Cas moans and braces his weight on his elbows, breath hitching as Dean kisses along his back.

'You want me in you, Cas? Want me to fuck you?'

'Yes,' he pants.

Dean adds a second finger, then a third, scissoring into him. 'Want you to feel this all day,' he murmurs, as Cas shudders and gasps, 'think of me fucking you all day, think of me fucking you over your desk, just like this.' He pulls his hand away, and Cas makes a sound somewhere between a gasp and a whine as Dean's cock slides into him. He pushes back against the burn – or as much as he can, with how hard Dean is gripping his hips – and all the while, his heart is beating like crazy, because this is perfect, this unbelievable, he doesn't want to stop, but some stupid part of him still cares that –

'I'm going to be late,' he gasps.

The words slip out of their own accord. Cas's cheeks flush with shame, but Dean doesn't laugh; just presses all the way into him and stays there, lifting a hand to rake his fingernails down Cas's back.

'You worried what people will think of you, Cas? Worried they'll think you're slacking off?' He digs his nails in a little, and Castiel arches into it. 'Tell me.'

He shuts his eyes, groaning as Dean starts to move in him again: slow, powerful strokes, completely unhurried. 'I have a – _ah_ – reputation, I work hard, Dean, I – _ahhh_ –' and then, gulping, '– harder, _fuck_ , fuck me harder please I –'

'Harder?' Dean asks. 'Or faster?' He slows down even more, the fucker, and Castiel can almost _hear_ the smirk in his voice. 'You want to do this right, Cas? Or just get to _work_ a little quicker?'

' _Right_ ,' he gasps, trembling in every muscles, 'right, do it right, do it, fuck –'

Dean leans forward and gently kisses the base of his neck, just once. 'OK,' he murmurs, and proceeds to do exactly that, fucking him hard and deep and – still, infuriatingly – slow.

Within minutes, Castiel is strung out and sweating. He wants Dean to hurry up and he just _won't_ , no matter how Cas swears and pleads and pushes back, and holy fucking god, it's like he's burning from the inside out, he's going to be late and he should care, he _should_ , but he absolutely doesn't because Dean is pounding into him, praising him, hitting every sweet spot he has. Castiel has never screamed during sex before, but now, the noise just drags itself out of him, keening and raw and embarrassingly loud. But though he groans in sympathy, Dean _still won't speed up_ , and as Cas turns his face to the pillow, the scream becomes a needy sob.

' _Please_ ,' he begs, and only then does Dean comply. The rhythm of his thrusts turns fast and desperate, nailing Cas's prostate, making him tremble and gasp. His orgasm hits like a suckerpunch; he throws his head back, shuddering as Dean fucks him through it, until he gives a ragged shout and comes in turn, his nails leaving half-crescent cuts on Castiel's hips.

'Cas,' he whispers, running his hands soothingly over Castiel's back, thumbing his tattoos. 'Cas, baby, you OK? You're perfect, you know that? Jesus.' He strokes his thighs, his sides, kissing up his spine, and when he pulls out, the first thing he does is roll Cas gently over onto the clean side of the sheets, arranging him comfortably. Cas just lies there, panting and boneless, blinking spots out of his vision.

'I'll just – I'll be right back, OK?' says Dean. The bed moves as he rises, and Cas feels panic clench his chest, that Dean is going to leave him there, but he's back again almost instantly, murmuring apologies as he cleans Cas up with one of the still-damp towels, his ministrations soft and sure. He wipes himself down, too, and the sheets, then pulls the comforter over them and cuddles up against Cas, one arm tight around him as he kisses patterns across his shoulders.

'You're amazing, Cas. You're... god, I don't even have words. You're extraordinary.'

Cas laughs weakly. 'Look who's talking.'

'If I'm any good, it's because of you.' Dean sighs, nuzzling against him. 'I don't even feel sick any more.'

'Good sex has curative properties,' says Cas, and turns in the circle of his arms, needing to see his face. Dean shifts to accommodate the move, and when Cas rests a palm on his cheek, he smiles.

'Hello.'

'Hello.'

The kiss is featherlight, a teasing brush of lips, and it sparks through Castiel like pure electricity. He looks at Dean, at his sea-green eyes and freckle-spanned skin, and thinks, _I could live in this moment._

He doesn't say that, though. What comes out instead is, 'I don't want to be late for work, but I don't want to go, either.' He means to laugh, make a joke of it, but the sound is all wrong, and he echoes, 'I don't want to go, Dean.'

'So don't go.' He smiles, running a hand over Cas's hip. 'Stay home and paint. I want to see what that piece looks like when you're finished, and the one after that, too.'

Cas's throat closes over, and for a moment, he's so tempted, it almost hurts. _You've been down this road before, Castiel. Just let it go._

'I can't, Dean. I've got a meeting.' He inhales, then adds, quietly, 'But I will be thinking about this all day. About you.'

A pleased flush spreads across Dean's cheeks. 'Me, too.'

They linger for one kiss more, then finally drag themselves out of bed, hurrying to pull on their respective work clothes, laughing as they get in each other's way. Dressed in his suit and tie, Cas throws his trenchcoat on over the top and checks himself in the bathroom mirror. Belatedly, he realises he's put on a white shirt without anything under it – something he usually tries to avoid, as it leaves the silhouette of his tattoos visible, and despite what he originally told Dean, they do tend to raise eyebrows in the workplace. Throw in the fresh pair of hickies, an unshaven jaw and hair that's even messier than usual, and the overall effect is somewhere between ramshackle and debauched.

'Damn, Cas,' says Dean, poking his head through the door. 'You look like John Constantine.'

'Is that a bad thing?'

Dean snorts. 'Is it a bad thing that my insanely hot boyfriend is dressed up like a badass, bisexual antihero? I'm thinking no.' He curls his arms around Castiel's neck and kisses him, grinning. 'Come on. If the traffic gods are with us, we might still make it on time.'

Cas is sceptical of that, but it's like the universe is conspiring in his favour: once they hit the road, they get every green light between his apartment and Dean's garage, making good enough time that, despite everything, Cas is still in with a shot of making work by nine fifteen.

'Just pull up there,' says Dean, pointing at the front lot of the garage, which is apparently called Singer Auto. As Cas complies, two men in blue coveralls straighten up from beside a parked Range Rover, eyeing his Porsche with what he hopes is purely professional interest. He lets the engine idle rather than turning it off, and as he faces Dean, a sudden rush of nervousness quickens his pulse. He wants to kiss him goodbye, but Dean expressly said at dinner that he was worried about coming out to his coworkers here, and as they're being watched, Cas doesn't want to make him uncomfortable.

'What time does your shift end?' he asks, realising belatedly that he doesn't know.

'I get off at five,' says Dean. 'You?'

'Five thirty,' says Cas, cursing the half-hour difference. 'But if you wait, I can still pick you up –'

'Or,' says Dean, cutting him off, 'you could just come over to my place.' He shrugs, the tips of his ears turning pink. 'I mean, it's not much, and I'm not a great cook, but I could, you know. Make dinner, or something.'

Cas reaches over and briefly twines their fingers together, giving his hand a squeeze. 'I would like that very much.'

Dean's smile is like the sun coming out. 'It's a date, then,' he says – and with a sudden, glorious urgency, he leans across and kisses him. Cas gasps, kissing back hungrily as Dean's fingers cup the back of his neck, pulling him closer. Dean nips his bottom lip, then pulls away, an exultant look on his face.

'Did they see that?' he asks, meaning his coworkers.

From the corner of his eye, Castiel catches a glimpse of slackjawed gawking. 'Oh, yeah. They saw.'

Dean's grin sharpens. 'Good,' he says, and gives him a peck on the cheek. 'Let the games begin.'

'You call me if you need to, OK?' Cas says, as Dean gets out the passenger side.

By way of answer, Dean gives the car a friendly pat, winking at Cas through the windscreen. He strolls into garage, waving at the men in coveralls, and Castiel lingers a moment to appreciate the full effect of his bowlegged gait before reversing out of the lot and driving away, a smile on his lips and a song in his blood.

He's running far enough behind that, perversely, it seems to work in his favour: this close to nine, the streets have started to clear, and by the time he finally pulls into the basement garage at Sandover, it's just shy of nine twenty. Castiel jogs to the lift and taps his foot impatiently the whole way up to the thirteenth floor. As he passes by the secretarial station, his office manager, Rachel, jerks upright like a meerkat and says, 'They're in conference room two, and Adler looks pissed.'

'Noted,' says Cas, and goes straight on to his office, dumping both his trenchcoat and his suit jacket over the back of his chair before snatching up the files he left there on Thursday.

He enters the conference room to the sound of his boss ranting on about profit margins, and almost rolls his eyes at the realisation that, even twenty minutes late, he hasn't actually missed anything important, because Zachariah Adler is pathologically in love with the sound of his own voice. All eyes snap to Castiel as he takes his seat, ignoring the murmur of surprise that greets his dishevelled appearance.

'Sorry I'm late,' he says, to the room in general. 'Busy morning.'

'Oh! Well, I'm _so_ glad you could find time in your schedule for us, Mr Novak,' says Zachariah, his flat voice dripping with sarcasm. 'And were you similarly busy on Friday? Or did you just decide to give yourself a three day weekend without deigning to call in?'

Castiel stares at him. It's not like he and Zachariah have ever exactly been close, but the venom in his boss's tone catches him completely off guard. The way he's reacting, you'd think Cas was the sort of employee who routinely shirked his responsibilities and wandered in late, instead of having taken only four sick days in the last two years while working countless hours of unpaid overtime on Zachariah's pet projects.

'My apologies,' he says, stiffly. 'I, ah. Needed a personal day.'

Someone else at the table snorts, and Cas whips his head around, surprised to identify the culprit as Chuck Shurley, the quiet, bespectacled representative from the IT department.

'Sorry,' he says, ducking at Castiel's glare. 'It's just, you know. You never seemed to have much of a personal life.'

Cas inhales sharply at that. As apologetic as Chuck sounds, the observation somehow stings more than Zachariah's scathing condemnation, and he's on the brink of replying in kind when Abbie 'Abbadon' Sands, the feared head of HR, cuts in with a dry, 'As fascinating as the subject of Mr Novak's weekend is, could we please get back to the matter at hand? Mr Adler?'

Zachariah tugs his cuffs – a sure sign of irritation – but even he treads lightly around Abbie, and so takes the suggestion to heart. 'Quite,' he says, curtly. 'Now, as I was saying –' and launches into an enthusiastic speech about the Ballantyne project.

Which would ordinarily be dull enough to have Castiel zoning out, doodling caricatures of his colleagues in the margins of his notes. But he spent the bulk of last week going over the finances for Ballantyne, and despite the fact that he spent an hour on Thursday explaining to Zachariah exactly why the project, in its current state, is fiscally unviable, his boss is now categorically stating the opposite, waxing lyrical about its potential benefits to Sandover – nay, the entire Sandover family, a noxious phrase which always leaves Castiel feeling like he just threw up in his mouth – and what a coup it will be. Castiel thinks back to Thursday, trying to remember exactly what Zachariah said during their meeting, if he expressed any doubt in Cas's analysis. At the time, he'd thought his boss was taking his comments seriously – he'd certainly nodded along like he was – and had even finished by thanking him for his hard work. But as Cas turned to leave, Zachariah looked up from his desk and said, 'I'm sure we'll iron out the kinks, Castiel, but remember – Ballantyne isn't just important to Sandover, it's important to me, personally. Come Monday morning, I'm counting on your support.'

And Cas had agreed, because Cas is an idiot, and even after years of subjecting himself to Zachariah's false smiles, backbiting tactics and sheer, baldfaced lying, he still somehow expected his work to be treated respectfully. But instead, Zachariah is making promises on behalf of the accounts department that he already knows he can't keep, and when those bills come due, it'll be Castiel's fault the money isn't there, his unpaid job to somehow, impossibly make up the shortfall, a Herculean effort for which his boss will take the credit if he's successful while passing the buck if he's not. And if Castiel falters or asks for leeway, Zachariah will react the same way he always does: by alternating between coaxing and threats – how important the project is, how Castiel's enthusiasm (or lack thereof) will be reflected in his end of year review – until Cas gives in and does it anyway.

The revelation hits him like a brick to the face: his boss is an abusive, manipulative asshole, and instead of quitting or sticking up for himself, he's treated it as normal business practice, as the price he pays for having a top floor view and more disposable income than he ever has time to spend, because he's always at work, at he _hates_ it. He thinks about Dean, his effortless encouragement of Castiel's art, how naturally he'd told him to stay home and paint, and a lump forms in his throat, because he doesn't want to be here, and how the fuck has it taken him this long to figure it out? It's not like Gabriel hasn't dropped enough hints – hell, it's not like he's stupid, like he doesn't know toxicity when he sees it (except, apparently, when it's directed at him). It's just that, deep down, despite Zachariah's hostility, he'd always assumed his hard work was appreciated; that he was building some sort of complicated rapport with the man, or at least a store of professional credit, and that, if and when he ever needed his boss's support, he'd get it.

But if one absent day and one late morning are crimes enough to completely overshadow all his good work – enough to see him, not reprimanded in private, but mockingly rebuked in front of his peers – then Zachariah can politely go fuck himself sideways with a chainsaw, because Castiel is _done_.

The realisation leaves him feeling flushed, his pulse through the roof. Impossibly, Zachariah is still talking, still singing Ballantyne's praises, and Castiel has a sudden wild impulse to speak up and publicly contradict him, just for the satisfaction of seeing the look of outrage this would produce on his boss's smug, florid face. But then he has an even better idea, and it's so perfect, he almost laughs out loud. Euphoria fills him, and he suddenly wonders if Dean might be responsible for his epiphany in more ways than one. Cas has little enough experience with taking on a sexually submissive role that, despite having enjoyed himself on those few past occasions, he never once thought to classify himself as a switch instead of a dom, but this morning's encounter has blown that out of the water. What he's feeling now is the opposite of subdrop: an exhilarating burst of clarity and self-confidence, and he has Dean to thank for it – Dean, without whom he might never have broken his work routines profoundly enough to learn how little Zachariah really thought of him, or found the courage to do something about it.

Smiling, Castiel leans back in his chair, tilting it up onto two legs, one knee hooked beneath the table for balance. And then, because it's exactly the sort of passive, calculated _fuck you_ guaranteed to make Zachariah see red, he slowly, pointedly rolls up his sleeves to the elbow, revealing his tattoos. It's something he's never done in a meeting before, even on sweltering days or with the heating at full blast, because whenever Zachariah has caught him like that in his office, he's invariably made a thinly-veiled remark about 'professional standards of attire' or 'personal deportment', and Castiel, who's always been too much the good son to refuse such coded rebukes, has internalised them instead.

Now, though, he revels in the reaction this produces among his colleagues, the ripple of attention turning away from Zachariah and towards him – there's even, he swears, a quiet 'Oh!' of realisation from Chuck, whose gaze flickers to Cas's neck, taking in the evidence of his purpling hickies. His smile broadens further when Zachariah glances his way and does a full-on double-take at his presentation, even going to far as to stop mid-sentence and scowl. But rather than being cowed, Castiel just grins right back at him; Zachariah blinks, clearly bemused by this uncharacteristic lack of deference, then keeps on talking like nothing at all just happened.

Cas spends the rest of the meeting fantasising about having sex with Dean in the conference room, his office and – better yet – Zachariah's office, his imaginings vivid enough that he eventually has to stop rocking on his chair and sit up straight, because bare arms or not, there's only so much of himself he's willing to expose to scrutiny. Nobody asks him to speak – but then, they never do – and after an hour and a half of solid tedium, finally, the meeting is adjourned.

From over the table, Castiel catches Abbadon's gaze and says, in a conversational tone, 'Ms Sands, would I be able to have five minutes of your time? In private?'

The HR manager blinks, clearly surprised. 'Of course, Mr Novak,' she says, and with Zachariah glaring daggers at him, Cas follows her out of the conference room and up two floors to her office.

He shuts the door as Abbie takes a seat at her desk, but when she gestures for him to sit down, he shakes his head, preferring to stand with his hands braced on the back of the visitor's chair. Apart from being comfortable, the position clearly displays his tattoos, bur rather than sneering, Abbie looks them over, one thin red brow rising appreciatively.

'Nice lines,' she says. 'Raphael's work?'

Castiel tilts his head, surprised. 'Yes, actually. You know Archangel Ink?'

'Best in the city,' says Abbie, smiling her lipsticked smile. 'But don't ask me to show you my pieces; they're not exactly in safe for work locations. Or at least, not unless you're planning on buying me a drink first.' And her smile curves ever so slightly.

A week ago, being hit on Abbie Sands would have panicked Castiel, not least because of her position within the firm – but a week ago, he hadn't met Dean Winchester. Now, he meets her raised eyebrow with one of his own, and says, in a coolly curious tone, 'Is it standard HR practice to sexually proposition employees who ask for private meetings? Not, of course, that I'm wholly unflattered, but if you're going to hold a rejection against me, I'd rather know in advance.'

Abbie laughs – a rich, playful sound. 'Not standard practice, no; and nor will I hold anything against you. But given your new look –' she taps the side of her neck, indicating Castiel's hickies, '– and as unprofessional as it sounds, I couldn't quite resist. You're usually so buttoned-down, and as they say, a change is as good as a holiday.'

Castiel smiles. 'About that,' he says, and takes a deep breath. 'I'd like to officially tender my resignation. Consider this my two weeks' notice.'

Abbie's mouth hangs open. 'Excuse me?'

'I quit,' he says. 'Or do you need it in writing?'

'Technically, yes, but –' she pulls her chair in, suddenly all business, '– this is something of a shock. You're one of Sandover's most valued employees, Mr Novak. Your work has always been exemplary, and I'd hate to lose you. Is there something we can offer you? Have you had a more competitive offer?'

'Not at all.' Castiel's smile widens; he's enjoying himself immensely. 'I've simply reached my breaking point. I'm not happy here, Ms Sands; I haven't been for a long time, and I'm beginning to question whether I ever really was. You say I'm a valued employee, but when I show up late for the first time in five years and the immediate reaction of my boss is to humiliate and belittle me in public, well – if that doesn't tell you everything about how I'm treated here, then I'm not about to waste my breath spelling it out for you.'

Abbie's jaw snaps shut like trap. There's anger in her eyes, but Castiel isn't wholly sure it's directed at him, and in any case, he's quitting; any fear he had of her is gone. 'You've made no complains about Zachariah's behaviour,' she says, 'and without our being made aware of the problem, there's not much Sandover can do to –'

' _Not aware of the problem?_ ' Castiel laughs out loud. 'Let me tell you, Ms Sands, _about the fucking problem_. To the best of my knowledge, the last three accounting employees to flag complaints about Mr Adler were all sacked inside of a month for offences that can all be roughly summarised as Failure to Kowtow, because the man is a power-hungry buffoon. He's just spent a whole morning declaiming the virtues of Ballantyne when I expressly told him last week that Phase 3 alone renders the whole thing a financial catastrophe, but he's gone and hitched his wagon to what he blithely imagines must be a star, and in the end, it'll be my job to make it so, just like it was with Prescott and Dwyer and Alembics Incorporated, and I'll be _damned_ –' and he smacks his hand down, astonished by his own sudden anger, '– if I waste another six or twelve or eighteen months of my life digging him out of his osrtich-headed hole in the sand for the grand reward of hours of unpaid overtime and no credit given. So, yes, Ms Sands: I quit. Joyfully so.'

There's a long, pregnant moment of silence. Then Abbie's brows draw sharply together.

'I think, Mr Novak, that you ought to sit down.'

Cas snorts. 'Why? So you can try and dissuade me more formally?'

'No,' she says. 'So that you can explain the situation to me more fully.'

'More fully than what? What else is there to explain?'

'Well, for a start,' she says, carefully, 'you can tell me what you mean by _unpaid_ overtime.'

 


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: homophobia, bullying.

Three hours into his shift, Dean starts to lay mental bets on which of his coworkers will be the first to break the ice about his sexuality. Jo, of course, ran up and hugged him the second he walked into the locker room – she'd seen his show with Cas through the window, and was far less concerned that Dean was into guys than that he had, in her words, 'finally gotten a goddamn date' – but she was different. Their boss, Bobby Singer, was something of a surrogate uncle from way back, and Jo was his stepdaughter, which made her family first and a colleague second; but even so, a small knot of worry had slipped away with her easy acceptance, and Dean had been smiling ever since.

Not that he wouldn't have been smiling anyway, after what he'd done with Cas. Just thinking about it was enough to quicken his breathing. He'd never – god, he'd never taken control like that, never been confident enough in himself or his partner to so much as consider it; hell, before Cas, he'd never known what dominance could look like, when it wasn't being hurtful or abusive. And even then, he might never have worked up the courage to try; might have lived and died without knowing sex could be that good, that he could have Castiel Novak writhing and shaking and fucking _screaming_ under him, which was hands-down the sexiest, most mind-blowing thing he'd ever seen in his life. But that stupid nightmare – and even now, Dean shies away from thinking about the specifics of it – left him with a burning need to act, rather than be acted upon, and when Cas joined him in the shower, something in him just snapped.

 _I'm a switch,_ he thinks, rolling the word around in his head, trying to get a feel for it. He's pretty sure that's the right term, and after this morning, he's got some seriously compelling evidence that Cas is one, too, which – Jesus, how the fuck is he this lucky? Where did Cas even come from? Dean tries to focus on his work, pushing himself further under the beat-up Honda he's in the middle of servicing, but all he's thinking about is Cas, and cooking him dinner, and how best to clean up the house so it doesn't look like a total dump, because he wants to do this right, wants to show him how much he matters –

'Hey, Dean!'

Someone thumps on the car's hood, jolting Dean out of his reverie. Putting down his tools, he pushes out from under the car and finds himself blinking up at Rufus Turner, one of the oldest guys at the garage and, coincidentally, Bobby's best friend. He takes in Rufus's frown and pulls himself to his feet, fighting the urge to duck his head.

'Yeah, Rufus?'

'Did I hear right? You were making out with a dude in the lot this morning?'

'Yeah, I was. He's my boyfriend.' He straightens, steeling himself. 'Why? You got a problem with it?'

Rufus snorts, a broad grin spreading over his face. 'Aw, hell no,' he says, slapping Dean on the shoulder. 'Just wanted to welcome you outta the closet, that's all.'

Dean blinks, completely dumbfounded. 'Oh. Um. Thanks, Rufus. That's, uh. That means a lot.' And it does, too – the rush of relief is so dizzying, he has to reach out and brace himself on the Honda. 'Really.'

Rufus laughs. 'Shit, there ain't nothin' wrong with being gay – I just always figured you were asexual, you know? I mean, you never talk about girls or boys, always clam up when Jo teases you about dating – wait. _Are_ you asexual? 'Cos kissin' or not, it's not like you can't be both.'

'Not asexual, no,' says Dean, grinning stupidly. _Very definitely not._ 'Just gay.'

Rufus clicks his teeth in approval. 'Well, that's good to know. Congratulations!' And then he scowls again, nodding pointedly at the Honda. 'Now get back to work, wouldja? We got cars to fix, and you're hoggin' my favourite creeper.'

'Sure thing,' says Dean, and does exactly that, wrapping up the service in ten minutes flat. Once the car is out of the way, he makes a point of sliding the creeper over to Rufus, who looks up from the bonnet of an '89 Corvette and shoots him an approving grin.

'Thanks, man.'

'No problem,' says Dean, and turns to go – and almost runs smack into Kubrick, a sharp-faced white guy in his middle forties who's standing there with his arms crossed and a look of genuine consternation on his face.

'Dean,' he says, by way of greeting.

'Kubrick,' says Dean, warily. 'What's up?'

'Y'know, I'm sure it's a mistake, but I heard a little rumour about you today, and I wanted to clear the air myself.'

'Whatever you've heard, it's true.' He tries for nonchalance. 'Unless Jo's been telling everyone I like Taylor Swift again, which is absolute bullshit.'

Kubrick tilts his head, smiling strangely, and for the first time, Dean realises they have an audience; that every worker in earshot has stopped what they're doing, watching their conversation play out. 'You're not denying it, then?'

'Denying what, Kubrick?' he says, pitching his voice to carry.

Kubrick's smile sharpens. 'That you're a faggot.'

Even having braced for it, the slur is a gutpunch. Dean's cheeks burn, his pulse leaping wildly. It takes all his self-control to plant his feet and smile right back, and say, with a calmness he absolutely does not feel, 'Yeah, Kubrick. I fuck men. I both take and give it up the ass, but as you've got all the sex appeal of a road accident –' and thank you, Douglas Adams, for that particular insult; Dean's too angry right now to think up one of his own, '– I fail to see how it's any of your goddamn business.'

'Sin is everyone's business,' says Kubrick. A gold cross glints on a chain at his throat. 'The crimes of one diminish the worth of the many, Dean. You need to think about how your actions affect us all. You're a sinner, and you need to repent.'

'Oh, for the love of –' Dean shakes his head, abruptly tired. 'You know what, Kubrick? Believe whatever the hell you want, but I'm not hurting anybody, and whoever I date, it doesn't affect you. Now get outta my way, man. I've got work to do.' And he tries to dodge around him.

But Kubrick steps straight back into his path, a feral light in his eyes. 'We're not done here, Dean.'

From behind them, Rufus yells, 'Kubrick! Leave it!', and from elsewhere in the garage, there's a murmur of assent. Dean pauses, giving the other man a chance to walk away first. When he doesn't, though, Dean shrugs, and tries to get past again.

Kubrick grabs his arm, his grip hard and bruising. 'I _said_ ,' he hisses, 'we're not _done_ yet, you fucking – hey!'

Dean wrenches out of his grasp, stumbling away, a sudden terror in his throat as the dream rears up again, _hard hands holding him down_ , and it's all he can do to choke out, 'Leave me the _fuck_ alone, Kubrick, you goddamn –'

Stars explode in his vision, followed by a sharp burst of pain. The sudden blow sends him reeling back into a pylon, and there's an audible crack as his head collides with the metal. Dean gasps, arms jerking up automatically to guard his face, but the next punch takes him square in the stomach, and then he's on the ground, gagging as his ears ring. Sweaty and shaking, he's dimly aware of people shouting, and when he touches his face, his fingertips come away bloody, though whether it's from his nose or lip or somewhere else, he doesn't know.

'Shit,' he says, to no one in particular, and suddenly Jo's there, crouching down in front of him with a look of furious concern on her face.

'That _asshat_!' she explodes. 'Are you OK?'

Dean coughs. 'Not sure,' he says. 'How do I look?'

'Groggy. I think his ring cut your cheek. You're going to have a hell of a shiner.'

'Lucky me,' Dean says. He shuts his eyes, leaning back against the pillar.

'Hey, hey!' Jo taps his jaw, forcing him to look at her. 'No going to sleep, all right? You whacked that thing pretty hard; you might have a concussion.' Worriedly, she bites her lip. 'You should get it checked out at the hospital, just in case.'

'Cas,' Dean says, suddenly. He fumbles in his coveralls, trying to get his phone. 'Call Cas, he said to call him, we're meant to have dinner, I can't – I have to let him know –'

Gently, Jo stills his hands and pulls the phone from his pocket. 'I've got it, Dean. I'm calling him right now, OK?'

'OK,' says Dean. His whole head throbs, and the temptation to shut his eyes is strong, but he forces himself look around the garage. Two other mechanics have a furious Kubrick pinned by the arms while Rufus shouts at him, but his words are distorted in the echoing space, and Dean can't make them out.

Beside him, Jo kneels up, the phone to her ear. 'Hi, is that Castiel? Um, look, you don't know me, but my name's Jo, and I work with Dean at the garage, and something's – no, he's fine, I mean, he's a bit shaken and bruised, but it's – yeah, I'd appreciate if – he's right here, but he's a bit – all right. I'll put him on.' She hands the phone to Dean, smiling, and mouths the words, _he sounds hot_.

'He is,' Dean croaks, and takes the mobile. 'Hey, Cas.'

The voice on the other end is frantic. 'Dean! Are you all right? What happened?'

'Kubrick happened,' says Dean, gaze flicking briefly to the other man, who's still being forcibly held in place. 'Apparently, being gay is a sin.'

'Son of a _bitch._ ' Cas sounds furious. 'I'll be there in five minutes, OK? I'm coming right now.'

Despite everything, Dean chuckles. 'I'm not sure that's physically possible, Cas. Even if you drive flat out –'

'Five minutes,' Cas repeats, firmly. 'See you soon.'

'See you,' Dean echoes. They both hang up, and he slots the phone back in his pocket. He looks at Jo, who's giving him a Look, and is about to speak when an angry bellow cuts through the garage.

'What in the hell is this?'

Bobby Singer strides onto the floor, trailed by one of the younger mechanics, who Rufus presumably sent to find him. Bobby takes in the sight of Dean and Kubrick – one on the floor, the other restrained, and both being stared at by what now amounts to the garage's entire workforce – and says, with deceptive calm, 'Rufus, you mind explainin' to me what's goin' on here?'

'Not at all, Bobby.' He nods at Dean. 'See, young Winchester over there got hisself a boyfriend, and Kubrick, bein' a bigoted dumbass, decided that was worth a punch in the face.'

Bobby goes still, his eyebrows drawing together. Slowly, he turns to stare at Kubrick. 'You wanna run me through the logic of that decision?' he growls.

Kubrick tilts his chin, defiant. 'Leviticus 18:22. _“Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable.”_ He's a goddamn faggot, Bobby. I'm just exercising my First Amendment right to freedom of religion.'

'Goddamnit, Kubrick, you ignorant fuck!' Bobby's bearded face is red with anger. 'First of all, the First Amendment doesn't give you free reign to go around punchin' people who ain't punched you first, and second of all, don't you go quoting Leviticus at me when you know jack shit about Biblical exegesis! The whole goddamn _poin_ t of Christ Almighty dyin' on the cross was God sayin' as how he'd overwritten the Old Testament laws, which is why it ain't a sacrilege to eat shellfish or wear blended cloth, so if you're gonna plead freedom of religion, you'll kindly restrict yourself to what the New Testament has to say on the subject of homosexuality, which is what again, Rufus?'

'Absolutely nothin',' says Rufus, smugly.

'Right,' says Bobby, smiling in the face of Kubrick's fury. ' _Nothin'_. So now I'm gonna give you a choice, Kubrick. You can march over there and apologise to Dean for bein' a hateful sack of shit, or you can go clean out your locker – but either way, if he wants to press charges on you for assault, I ain't gonna stop him. So. What's it gonna be?'

Kubrick spits on the floor. 'You're all going to hell,' he snarls, and stalks off towards the locker room.

As he leaves the floor, Dean lets out a breath he didn't know he was holding. He tries to sit up a little straighter, but his head is swimming, pounding inside and out.

'Good riddance,' Jo mutters, loud enough to be overheard.

Bobby glances their way, flashing Dean a brief, sympathetic look before turning back to the rest of the garage. 'Now, listen up!' he says. 'I shouldn't have to say this, seeing as how y'all are ostensibly grown-ass adults, but I will not tolerate homophobic bullshit in my place of business, same as we don't allow sexism –' his gaze flicks to Jo, '– racism –' to Rufus, '– or any any other dumbass -ism you'd care to name. So!' He folds his arms over his chest and glares. 'If anyone else wants to speak their piece on the subject of sexuality, then in the immortal words of one O-ren Ishii, now's the fuckin' time!'

There's a moment of absolute silence. And then, from somewhere near the back of the room, a hand shoots up and a voice calls out, 'I'm bisexual!'

Bobby blinks, surprised. 'Well, thanks for that, Martin. Good for you. Now, are we done here? Because –'

He's cut off by a furious squeal of tyres, followed almost immediately by the sound of a car door slamming. Jo stands up, and Dean can see her waving at someone through the shop window. He can hear running footsteps, and then Cas bursts into the garage, tie askew and sleeves rolled up, staring around frantically until he lays eyes on Dean. Without a word or a moment's hesitation, he runs over and kneels down beside him, scanning his face. His hands are shaking where they cradle Dean's jaw, his blue eyes wide and frightened.

'Dean, are you all right? Are you hurt?' And then, inhaling sharply, 'Jesus, you're bleeding, you're –'

'I'll be fine, Cas.' Dean smiles at him, reaching up to place a palm over his hand. 'My head hurts a bit, but that's all. It's just a scratch.'

Cas leans in and kisses him, a gentle, urgent peck. 'You idiot,' he says, and there's no disguising the shake in his voice. 'You scared the hell out of me.'

'Yeah, well.' Dean shrugs, blushing as Cas helps him stand. 'I'm fine.'

'He should still get his head checked out,' says Jo, glancing sternly between them. 'Kubrick didn't clock him that hard, but he hit the pylon on his way back.'

'Kubrick,' Cas repeats, and all at once, his face is dark with fury. 'Where is he? I'll kill him, the fucker, I'll –'

'Easy,' says Dean. He gives Cas's arm a squeeze, holding him in place, which action also helps him to stay upright. 'Bobby just fired him, OK? No need to go all caveman.' Though privately, the prospect of seeing Cas wail on the guy is more than a little tempting.

Cas huffs, looping an arm around Dean's waist. 'I suppose not,' he grudges. And then, in a softer tone of voice, 'We should still get you checked out, though, like Jo said.'

'Oh, no.' Dean shakes his head, wincing at the dizziness this produces. 'I'm not spending six hours in a hospital waiting room just to be given some painkillers and a bill the size of Connecticut. I'll be fine.'

'Dean –'

'Just take me home, Cas. I can rest up there.'

'You all right, boy?' asks Bobby, his sudden appearance forestalling Cas's answer. Dean sometimes struggles to read Bobby's facial expressions, what with the beard and the baseball cap and the habitual scowl, but right now, his concern is clear. 'You take the rest of today off, and tomorrow too, if you need it.'

Dean opens his mouth to say he doesn't need two days on the bench, but remembers in time that he's meant to be meeting Gabriel tomorrow, anyway. 'Thanks, Bobby,' he says instead. And then, after a moment, 'Cas, this is Bobby. He runs the place, but he's family, too. And Bobby, this is Castiel.'

Bobby looks Cas up and down, and if he's surprised by what he sees, he also seems to approve. 'Pleasure to meet you, boy,' he says, and the pair of them shake hands.

'Likewise,' says Cas. He glances at Dean, suddenly hesitant. 'Is there anything you need to get?'

Dean shakes his head again. Ordinarily, he'd change out of his coveralls, but he doesn't feel quite up to it yet, and he just wants to get the hell out of here. 'I'm good to go,' he says, wincing. 'In a manner of speaking.'

'This your fella?' says Rufus, wandering over. 'I'm impressed! Bobby, how come we weren't ever that pretty?'

Bobby makes a face. 'Speak for yourself, old man. I was adorable, and you know it.'

'Like hell you were. Waking up next to you nearly gave me a goddamn heart attack.'

'You _what_?' say Dean and Jo, as one.

Bobby colours above his beard. 'That was one time, Rufus.'

'Twice,' says Rufus. 'At _least_.' And then, in a stage whisper, 'We used to get drunk and fool around. Not many girls where we grew up. Y'had to improvise.'

'Oh, god.' Dean buries his face in Cas's shoulder. 'Get me out of here. Now. Before my brain explodes.'

'I think that's my cue,' says Cas, and even without looking up, Dean can hear the amusement in his voice. 'Bobby, Rufus, Jo. I hope to see you all again under, ah, better circumstances.'

'You, too,' says Jo – and then, for a miracle, Cas steers them out of the garage, Dean leaning on him the whole way. The Porsche is parked at an awkward angle, and it suddenly hits Dean that, despite the seeming impossibility of it, Cas really did manage to make the drive in under ten minutes.

As if sensing his train of thought, Cas gives a guilty cough and says, 'I may have incurred some speeding tickets.'

Dean laughs, opening the passenger side door. 'Time will tell, right?'

'But if I did,' Cas says, circling around to his own side, 'it was worth it.'

Dean sits and watches, speechless, as Castiel does up his seatbelt. He's smiling to himself, the tattoos on his arms a glorious contrast to the crisp, plain white of his shirt, the blue tie bringing out his eyes. It's an ordinary moment, but something tightens in Dean's chest, an impossible, desperate feeling that he can neither name nor express, because Cas, who was so worried about being late to work, still dropped everything and literally, illegally sped to come pick him up the second something was wrong. Dean can count on one hand the number of people who've ever done that much for him, and even including Cas, he still has fingers left over.

'All right,' says Cas, starting the engine. 'Just to be clear, I'm taking you home because you're lucid, but if you start to get woozy, or if I feel worried, we're going straight to the hospital. Deal?'

'Deal,' says Dean, still staring at him. 'Cas?'

'Yeah?'

'I –' He licks his lips, falters, not knowing what to say, but wanting to say _something_. 'Do you have to get back to work at all? Because I know you were worried about this morning, and it's not like I want to go to hospital, but if you're going to get in trouble for staying with me, then I can go, and you can come pick me up when you're done, it's no big d–'

Cas shuts him up with a kiss, and when he pulls back, his eyes are sparkling. 'Believe me,' he says, pulling the car out of the lot, 'work is the last place I need to be right now. In fact, I think they were downright relieved when I had to go. It gives them time to regroup.'

Dean blinks. 'Time to what now?'

'Regroup,' says Cas. There's a certain savage satisfaction to his tone, and yet his next words still catch Dean completely off guard. 'When the meeting was over this morning, I quit.'

'You _what_?'

'I quit,' says Cas, smiling happily, 'and I have you to thank for inspiring the decision. That being so, I went to see the HR manager, and in the course of explaining my motives for leaving, I happened to mention the copious amounts of unpaid overtime I've worked on my now ex-boss's account, and _that_ set off a whole chain reaction. See, any paid overtime for a given department comes out of that department's individual budget, so departmental managers have a strong incentive to portion out overtime carefully. Pay out too much, and your books look bad. Pay out too little, and you risk being given a smaller allocation next time around. Right?'

'Right,' says Dean, who's still trying to wrap his head around the fact that Castiel _quit his job_. 'And your manager – your boss – he wasn't being careful?'

Cas laughs, the sound both sharp and exultant. 'My _ex_ -boss,' he says, 'was cooking the books. Every time someone came to him for overtime, he told them he'd already used up the allocation, so they'd have to work unpaid – and we all did it, because nobody wanted to make waves. And I worked hard, and I've never exactly been, well, popular at work, or social, and with all the extra time I was putting in, it was apparently quite easy for him to convince my colleagues that I was the one using up all their prospective overtime pay, which may help explain why none of them ever warmed to me.'

He shrugs, like this sort of emotional betrayal is commonplace, and Dean is instantly furious on his behalf, because Castiel is amazing, and how dare those stuck-up asshats make him feel like an outsider! Cas, though, is too caught up to notice Dean's reaction, continuing the story without interruption.

'So when Zachariah – that's his name, Zachariah Adler, the shifty fuck – submitted his overtime accounts to HR, it was always my name he was putting down as recipient. He even made fake copies of my payslips, which was easy enough. I mean, he's the head of the accounts department – who's going to double check his work? But the whole time, he was keeping the overtime allocation aside in a separate company account, because there's this big new corporate expansion the higherups are all invested in, called Ballantyne – we've been looking into it for years, going over and over the details, trying to make it viable, and suddenly Zachariah's spearheading the thing, saying we really can make it work and getting all sorts of backslaps, but the numbers weren't right. I mean, I _knew_ they weren't; I went over it all myself, and I still didn't twig until Abbie – she's the head of HR – started talking about all the overtime I'd supposedly received.' He snorts, half angry and half amused. 'Guess what he was going to use our pay for?'

'Holy shit, Cas.' Dean stares at him. 'So, what – do they owe you a heap of money now, or something?'

'In this instance, I believe the correct term is a metric _fucktonne_ of money,' says Cas, completely deadpan, and Dean laughs so hard, he almost hits his head on the dashboard. 'And not just me, either. I went back over the records with Abbie, and it turns out, Zachariah hasn't actually paid any overtime for _three years_ , and he was being sketchy about it even before then. So when you consider how many of us he had working unpaid – and if the budget exists, they're meant to pay – the amount they owe in retrospect is far more than what he's actually set aside, because he had more of us working overtime than the department could ever have afforded. And if we decide to sue for breach of contract – and that's the way things were going, when you called; the whole place was in an uproar – then they'll owe us for loss of earnings, too, and probably a half-dozen other charges, up to and including pain and suffering. My guess is, they'll overpay to settle out of court, and soon; god only knows, they don't want the bad publicity.'

They pull up in front of Dean's house, and Cas laughs. 'And so I'm unemployed,' he says, a little breathless. 'I'm unemployed, and I'm going to be fine.'

'You really are,' says Dean, squeezing his hand. 'I mean, your ex-boss sounds like a douchecanoe of epic proportions, but at least this way, you get to really work on your art without having to worry about money. Just focus on what you love, you know?'

The word slips out so effortlessly, and yet it leaves his heart hammering, because it's not like he was talking about anything other than painting, but suddenly they're staring at each other, breathing faster than Dean would swear they were a moment ago, and Castiel holds his gaze and says, softly, 'Yeah. I'm – I want to. Do that.' He licks his lips, the flick of his tongue near sinfully hypnotic, and without quite meaning to, Dean reaches over and gently runs his thumb across the wetness, flicking the lip with his nail. Cas sucks in breath, and Dean blinks, snatching his hand away, a furious blush spreading up his cheeks.

'Sorry,' he says, and smiles, trying to cover the churning in his stomach. 'I'm probably concussed, you know.' He nods at the house, hands shaking as he unbuckles his seatbelt. 'We should, uh, we should go in, but I gotta warn you, man, the place is a bit of a mess, so you're going to have to promise not to judge me, OK?'

'OK,' says Cas, his expression mock-stern, 'but make one more concussion joke, and I really will take you to hospital.'

'Spoilsport,' Dean mutters – and just like that, they're back to normal, Castiel holding him steady as Dean leads him into the house.

 


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for this chapter explained in the endnotes.

From the way Dean talks about the state of his house, Cas is expecting something along the lines of Gabriel's room circa their late teens: a messy, bottle-strewn magpie nest of dirty clothes, sporting equipment, half-finished books, chocolate wrappers and poorly-concealed pornography. The exterior looks innocent enough – wooden, one story, painted cream, crammed in between two taller properties on either side – but when Dean turns the key in the lock, he braces himself for chaos.

Instead, there's only a tidy hallway, the bare floorboards scuffed but clean, with colourful pictures crowding the pale walls. They're all shapes and sizes, each one lovingly set in a cheap, bright frame, and Cas feels an unexpected lump in his throat when he realises that every single one is something a child has drawn. There are dozens of them, some little more than scribbles, others the careful, more considered work of older hands, but they've all been hung with exactly the same degree of care and attention to placement, so that the frames pattern the walls.

Dean follows his gaze, and gives a shaky, embarrassed laugh. 'I, uh. I found a few of Sammy's old things when I unpacked, so I figured I might as well put them up, and when the kids at the library started giving me pictures, I sort of just... kept going. Didn't seem right to throw them out.' He ducks his head, trying to urge Cas out of the hall. 'C'mon, man. You promised not to judge.'

Castiel holds him still, cupping a hand to Dean's jaw. There's a smear of dried blood on his cheek and a swelling bruise over his right eye, and it's almost enough to make Cas want to drive back to Singer Auto for the sole purpose of tracking down fucking _Kubrick_ , whoever he is, and beating the living hell out of him. But he doesn't, because Dean asked him not to, and because Dean is standing there looking shamefaced about his hall full of children's art, as though it's not the sweetest, most heart-melting thing in the world, and goddamn anyone who's ever made Dean feel less than kind and wonderful and extraordinary, because he is, he _is_ –

Cas kisses him tenderly, teeth barely grazing his lower lip, thumbing his jaw, only pulling away to press their foreheads together. 'I'm not judging you,' he murmurs. He strokes Dean's hip, pulling him closer, putting his mouth to his ear. 'God, you are so impossibly sweet, you know that?'

Dean drops an almost-chaste kiss on Cas's neck. 'Yeah, well, you're a sap.'

'And proud of it.' Cas kisses his temple. 'Show me the rest of the place?'

They keep going, passing a closed door on the left – 'Guest room,' Dean says, 'for when Sammy visits,' – before the hall becomes an open-plan kitchen and living room.

'My room and the bathroom are over there,' says Dean, pointing awkwardly off to the left, but Cas is only half listening, because he's transfixed by the pair of work tables pressed against the back windows. Both surfaces are covered in craft and DIY projects, and Cas wanders over, staring at the contents of the righthand bench in unabashed delight. There's a paper mache robot – 'For a library thing,' Dean says, scuffing his feet – alongside an assortment of old electronics, all in various stages of dis- and reassembly, or in the process of being transmogrified into something new. He also spies a knitting basket stuffed with a variety of colourful yarn, a fat, half-knitted scarf in shades of green and blue still wound around the needles.

Cas raises an eyebrow. 'Didn't you just mock me for watching a knitting documentary?'

'Hey, just because I knit doesn't mean I wanna watch a film about it.'

Behind the basket are old glass jars of odds and ends – shells, stones, buttons, plastic toys, beads, ribbons, even feathers – stacked haphazardly alongside boxes of model trains and aeroplanes, with some of the finished products hung on wires from the ceiling. But as Cas moves across the room, it's the contents of the lefthand bench that really leave him speechless. Standing above the clutter of tools, paints and other creative detritus is a model castle seemingly made from a combination of Lego bricks, scrap metal, beach pebbles, glass, toy parts and Christmas tree lights, the unlikely materials glued or welded together to make something that looks like a faerie nightmare, surreal and beautiful. Cas doesn't know whether it belongs in a child's playroom or an art gallery, but the sheer inventiveness of it takes his breath away.

'You _made_ this?' he says, not quite daring to touch it, fingers ghosting over a line of crenellated battlements made from domino pieces. He looks at Dean, still waiting on an answer, and is horrified to see that Dean is visibly cringing.

'Oh, yeah, that,' he says, shoulders hunched. 'In my defence, I was drunk when I had the idea for it, and once I was done, the damn thing was too big to move.' He turns away and says, quietly, 'It's just junk, Cas.'

'Just –' Cas sucks in breath, grabs Dean and pulls him back, thumbs stroking the inside of his arms, half possessive, half soothing. 'Who told you,' he says, voice dangerously low, 'that _any_ of this was junk?'

Dean looks at him, then down again. 'Alistair,' he says, softly. 'And, you know. My dad, when I used to make stuff for Sam. And a couple of guys I brought here, back before I stopped doing that –'

'Well, it's not,' says Cas, and surprises them both by hugging him tightly, hands pressed to Dean's shoulders. 'It's really not, OK? It's amazing. _You're_ amazing, and everyone else is an idiot.'

Tentatively, Dean hugs him back, a shudder rippling through him as he rests his head on Cas's shoulder, and for a minute, they just stand like that, Cas stroking Dean's hair as Dean breathes trustingly against him. Then:

'Cas?'

'Mm?'

'You think we could maybe go lie down? I won't sleep,' he adds, quickly, 'I'm just sore. Promise.'

'Sure,' says Cas, and lets Dean lead him into the bedroom.

It's a small, square space, and the walls and ceiling are papered with posters, the pictures overlapping each other at crazy angles, turning the whole thing into a collage, art prints and fantasy landscapes side by side with music and movie promos. It makes the artist in Cas light up, it's all so lovingly done – but then, he realises, that's how Dean does everything, quiet and caring and competent and so used to having his efforts either ignored or criticised that he has no idea what to do with praise. As Dean sits down on the edge of the bed and tugs off his boots and his coveralls, Cas is suddenly struck by a vision of their homes overlapping, his studio extending into a workroom covered with Dean's posters, his benches and projects against the walls and Cas's canvases stacked between them. There'd be a garden outside, and maybe, one day, children to play in it, and –

 _I'm in love with him._ The realisation hits like a thunderbolt. _Oh, god, I'm in love with him, this is so insane and I love him, who does that, who falls in love this fast?_ It's a dizzying question, and even moreso when part of him whispers, _Idiot, you've loved him since you saw him,_ which is completely impossible, there's no such thing as love at first sight, but there's a sweet ache in Castiel's chest that says otherwise, and it's all too big, too extraordinary, and so he just stands there, heart in his throat as Dean starts to pull off his shirt, too, wincing as he stretches.

'Here,' says Cas, suddenly drymouthed. 'Let me.'

He kneels between Dean's legs, running his hands lightly across his thighs and up to his ribs, lifting the shirt as Dean raises his arms. Slowly, Cas tugs the fabric over his head, and Dean bows forwards, following the pull. Cas's fingertips brush against his shoulders, nape, scalp, then trail down his arms as the shirt comes away. They both inhale sharply, gazes locked. Gulping, Dean leans back on his palms, lifting his hips as Cas unzips his jeans and hooks his fingers into the top of his boxers, pulling both layers down at once, until Dean is naked. Cas drinks in the sight of him, then rocks back on his heels, shedding his own clothes with quick, practised calm. Dean watches him, lips parted slightly, eyes flickering over Castiel's tattoos.

'Lie back,' Cas says, softly, and Dean complies, sliding around the unmade sheets until his head is on the pillow, staring at Cas down the length of his body. Smiling, Cas kneels at the foot of the bed and picks up Dean's left foot. He strokes the skin, dropping a light kiss on the tip of a toe, and then starts to massage the sole, thumbs kneading expertly into the arch. Dean groans, tipping his head back, and Castiel takes his time, giving both sides equal treatment.

When he's done, he kisses Dean's ankles and murmurs, 'Roll over.'

'Cas, you don't have to –'

'I want to,' he says. 'Roll over.'

Dean complies, head turned side-on and resting on the crook of his elbow, and when Cas starts to rub his calves, he moans. Cas kisses the back of his knee, taking his pressure-cues from the noises Dean makes, steadily working his way upwards. He does the backs of his thighs, parting Dean's legs gently to work the inside muscle, and Dean gasps, shivering at the increased exposure. But as exquisitely beautiful as Dean is, and though Cas is unabashedly hard – the act of massaging that perfect ass is far more provocation than his body can resist – this isn't about sex. He touches and kisses Dean everywhere, letting his fingers trail over his skin, mapping out constellations in his freckles. Cas straddles him, thumbs sliding up taut muscles of his back, and that's when Dean starts to groan in earnest, gasping and hissing with pleasure as Castiel works on every knot he finds.

By the time he finally reaches Dean's shoulders, his hands are starting to ache; he's lost track of time, but he must've been doing this for at least half an hour, and except for a few murmured questions about whether something hurts or not, they haven't spoken. Remembering Dean's list of old injuries, Cas goes carefully around those areas, and when he pauses, balling and flexing his fingers to stave off a cramp, he kisses tenderly along Dean's neck.

 _I love you._ Cas almost says it aloud, but once spoken, the truth would be either dynamite or fireworks, and he doesn't know which prospect terrifies him more. Instead, he says it with touch: in the sweep of his hands along Dean's arms, the brush of his lips against Dean's ear, the rock of his hips and thighs. He works his fingers into the tense muscles above Dean's collarbone, eliciting yet another pleasurable groan, and thinks, _I love you._ He thumbs gentle circles up the column of Dean's neck, and thinks, _I love you_. He massages his scalp, digging his fingers into that soft, gold hair, rubbing the pressure points behind his ears, and thinks, _I love you, I love you,_ the words beating in his blood like a second pulse, and it's only then, when there's no new skin to touch, that he lies down alongside him, grabbing the rucked-up comforter and pulling it over them both.

Boneless and mellow, Dean turns to face him, looking across at Cas through long-lashed lids. 'I think you broke me,' he murmurs. 'Like, in a really good way. My spine is liquid right now.' He drags a hand over the mattress, covering Cas's knuckles with his palm, squeezing gently. 'I've never had a massage before you.'

'Really?'

'Really.'

Cas kisses the back of Dean's hand. 'Well, it won't be your last, I can promise you that. I –' _love you, I love you,_ '– very much enjoy touching you. And seeing you relaxed.' He smiles, a little wickedly. 'And hearing you moan.'

'You –' Dean makes a noise that's not quite a sigh and not quite laughter, and moves his hand to cup Cas's face. He rests his palm there, thumb stroking over the cheekbone, eyes shut like he's gathering himself for something, and when he next looks up, his expression is almost excruciatingly vulnerable. 'You've understood me better in a week than most people have my whole life, you know that? You _see_ me, Cas, and I keep waiting for you realise how ugly I am, to look away again, and I just – god, I don't understand it, why you were even free to begin with. How has anyone ever let you go?'

Castiel's heart just about stops. 'Would you believe,' he says, softly, 'that I feel the same way about you?'

'Oh,' says Dean, like this never even occurred to him, and Cas reaches out to cup his cheek, mirroring his touch. They shift closer to one another, knees and thighs bumping, feet tangling shyly. Dean's breath tickles against his wrist, and Cas turns his head and lips the skin gently, making them both shiver. There's so much they could talk about – the fact that they're apparently both switches, Kubrick, Cas's job, Dean's nightmare, what's going to happen tomorrow – but the silence is both comforting and comfortable, a warm, safe space into which they've crawled, surrounding them like blankets, and despite Dean's promise not to fall asleep, it's exactly what they both do.

Until Cas wakes, groggy and disoriented, to the sound of Dean moaning in his sleep. He's wrapped in Cas's arms, head pillowed on his chest, and while he's not thrashing like he did last night, he's still twitching unhappily, his breathing fast and shallow.

'Dean?' Cas murmurs, stroking his back. 'Wake up, Dean. You're safe. Come back to me.'

But Dean doesn't wake; just presses his face into Cas's shoulder, too deep under the dream. ' _Don't_ ,' he slurs, low and pained – and then, the single word piercing through Cas like a spear, ' _Lucifer_.'

Time seems to stop.

Cas freezes, arms locked tight around Dean, heart beating wildly. There could be an innocent explanation – he mentioned his brother's nickname over dinner, and even if he hadn't, it's a word in its own right – but Dean's been going to Dante's for years, and it's not like Luke's sexual morality is so robust as to preclude sleeping with patrons. He wouldn't have to identify himself as the owner; he could just walk out, find someone – find _Dean_ – and _oh, god, Jesus, no, not that, anything but that_. Cas can't bear to think about it, he's so horrified, but all at once, the timing of Dean's nightmare makes a sudden, appalling sense: it happened _after_ he told him Luke was Lucifer, and hadn't Dean seemed shocked by that, in retrospect?

But no, no, that doesn't fit; Dean said it was an old nightmare, one he'd had before, one he insisted wasn't real – except, Cas amends, feeling sick to his stomach, that's not quite right, either. Dean might have _said_ it wasn't real, but his terror and pain suggested otherwise, like he only hoped it wasn't, and if this is the same bad dream he's having now, and if Luke is part of it – Luke, who never met a sexual taboo he wouldn't joke about breaking; Luke, who owns Dante's and named himself after the devil; Luke, who'd have to be blind to have overlooked Dean – if there's even a chance that Luke hurt Dean, that he – that he –

Dean whimpers, curling against him, and Castiel can't bear it. He runs his hands over Dean's back and shoulders: fast, urgent strokes, desperate to wake him but unable to let him go.

'Wake up,' he croaks, 'Dean, please, you have to wake up, it's just a nightmare.' Except, of course, that it isn't _just_ anything, and when Dean shudders and wakes, Cas realises he has no idea what to say. Dean looks up at him with wide, scared eyes, and Cas can feel the speed in his pulse where his hand rests over Dean's ribs, a sharp staccato. Something ugly twists in his chest: he can't not ask, but he's terrified of what the answer might be.

'You OK?' Dean asks worriedly, and the absurd reversal of the question – the fact that, even now, he's more concerned for Cas than himself – is what gives him the strength to speak.

'Are you?' Cas asks, softly. 'Dean, you had another nightmare. And you... you talked, in your sleep, this time. A name.'

'What did I say?'

'Lucifer,' says Cas, and the word is ash on his tongue, as paper-pale as Dean's face turns on hearing it. He can barely speak, but he has to say it, has to get it out. 'Dean, if he – if my brother hurt you – if he did something, anything, I won't – you can tell me, I'll believe, I – oh, god –'

Dean looks terrified; he sits up, knees to chest, still half-wrapped in the blankets, jaw working soundlessly as he struggles to answer. 'I don't know,' he says at last. 'Cas, I swear, I don't know, I don't –' he runs a hand through his hair, the gesture tense and jerky, '– it's a dream, I always thought it was a dream, I didn't want it to be anything else, but it has to be, it can't be your brother.'

'Dean, he owns the club, you could've met him –'

'No!' He shouts it, flushes. Shakes his head. 'No,' he says again, more quietly. 'I mean, it doesn't fit.'

'Fit what?'

'The... whaddaya call it, chronology. Timeline.' He gulps, a sheen of sweat on his forehead. 'First time I had that dream, I was still with Alistair. I didn't start going to Dante's until later. So that just proves it, you know? It's a dream. It's just, I don't know, some messed-up composite, stuff I'm remembering wrong, stuff that's out of order.'

'But it's the same dream?' Cas asks, desperately wanting to believe otherwise. 'I mean, has it always been the same, or does it change?'

'I don't know. I don't know how to describe it.' Dean is rocking slightly, hands gripping his legs. 'It's not like a regular dream, you know? It's like I'm underwater, all I can see is flashes of things, light and dark, like my eyes don't work, and I try to move, but I can't, I _can't_ , and people are... it's all just hands, hands and pressure and pain and talking and someone _laughs_ , and it doesn't – it's fragments, different but the same, and it shouldn't, it shouldn't scare me like it does, but it's fucking _terrifying_ , Cas, and I hate it, I don't want it to be real, because if it is –' he gasps a little, voice cracking, '– god, there were these mornings, sometimes, I'd wake up at Alistair's, and I didn't, I was so sure I hadn't drunk that much, but I couldn't remember getting to bed, and one time there were bruises but he said I fell in the hall, he said he carried me he said I, I –' he's almost crying, staring at Cas with this look on his face like something inside him has broken; and then he shudders all over, pale as bones, and whispers, 'Oh, god. It wasn't just a dream, was it?'

Cas feels like his heart is breaking. 'Dean –'

'I don't understand.' He's rocking again, harder than before, his speech gone choppy and sharp. Cas wants nothing more than to reach out and hold him, but every line of Dean's body is radiating _do not touch_ like an aura, and instead, he forces himself to wait, listen, watch. 'I don't understand why he'd, why, why, I don't, he already, he _had_ me, he could do whatever he, I never, I never said no, he didn't need, _he didn't need to drug me_ , I would've, for him, but the – hands –' he hunches in, swallowing a noise that's not quite keening, '– too many, there's too many, but he's there, his voice, his, I, he, I think he said, he, I remember, I – oh, god –' and suddenly he's up off the bed and stumbling for the door. Cas lurches after him, following close enough to watch as Dean falls to his knees in the bathroom and retches over the toilet, shuddering and sweating, and Cas will fucking _murder_ Alistair, _I'll kill him, I swear to fucking god, I'll rip his heart out_ , except that he's shaking so badly, he can barely stand, because _god, Luke, please don't be part of this, please don't have been there, please don't have hurt him, please please please –_

Slowly, Dean pushes himself upright. He wipes his lips, spits, rinses his mouth with water. The sound of the toilet flushing is loud, obscene. He can't seem to look at Cas, gaze fixed on the tiles, or on nothing at all, and when he speaks, his voice is so flat, it's barely recognisable.

'He drugged me. Shared me. I don't know how many times. I don't know with who. But he did it. Alistair did it.' His hands clench into fists, a tremor creeping into his voice, and Cas can barely breathe, it's so horrific. 'I don't think they fucked me. Or maybe they did. Or maybe not always. I don't know. I only remember hands. Some pain. Choking. I remember choking. Alistair said not to mark me. That's in all the dreams, his voice. And someone says, _Fucking Lucifer,_ but I don't know why. So maybe he was there. Or not. Maybe it means something else. They could've said anything. Done anything. And. I. Couldn't. _Move_.'

Dean's shoulders heave, and a sound wrenches out of him like tearing flesh. His legs buckle, and Cas – finally, desperately – catches him, arms wrapped tight around him as he screams himself raw, face pressed to Cas's shoulder. There's nothing to say, no words – the violation is too big, unspeakably so. Dean holds on hard enough to hurt, his fingers bruising Cas's back, and all Cas can do is hold him, one hand coming up to stroke his hair. The screams become a string of choking sobs, slowly petering out into plain tears, cold against against his collarbone, and Cas doesn't know when he started talking, only that he can't stop, a rushing murmur against Dean's ear, _I won't let them touch you again, you're safe, you're beautiful, you're so beautiful, I'll kill them, I'll protect you, anything you want, anything you need, anything, I'm not going anywhere, I believe you, I believe you, you're not broken, I promise, I believe you, I'm here, please, please,_ and all the while he thinks, _I love you, I love you,_ wanting to say it, fearing it would hurt, that tethering a pure truth to an ugly one, now, when he's never said it before, would only diminish them both. Then:

'No,' Dean says, and his voice is so thin, so ragged, it's barely audible. 'No. Fuck this. _Fuck_ this. Four damn years, he doesn't get to steal what I am.' He lifts his head and looks at Cas, as furious and fragile as a breaking storm, then kisses him like a raging one. Castiel gasps into his mouth, as much in shock as from desire, palms hovering over Dean's shoulders, not sure whether to hold him or pull away. Dean's hands slide to cradle his face, and when he sits back looks at Cas, he seems almost feverish. 'Give me this,' he whispers, 'Cas, please, I need this, I need you, I can't –' he gulps, fighting the shudder of his flesh, '– god, I can't let this own me, I need, I _need_ to choose this now, and I want you so fucking badly –'

'Dean,' Cas gasps, and it's all the permission Dean needs to lean in and kiss him again. They've been naked and spraddled on the cold, hard tiles for long enough that it's starting to hurt, a fact they both seem to remember simultaneously. They stagger upright, and Cas has scarcely got his feet under him before Dean is manhandling him backwards, biting kisses interspersed with tugs and shoves as they lurch into the bedroom. Cas can't even think any more, and he's not sure he should try, either: the only thing he wants is to let Dean take what he needs, and beyond that, the world can go fuck itself.

'Back, get back,' Dean growls, shoving him onto the bed. Cas obeys, pushing up the mattress until he's sitting up against the pillows, panting as Dean grabs a bottle of lube from the beside table. Kneeling over Cas, he kisses him so hard, his skull thumps into the headboard; his groan is muffled as Dean bites his bottom lip, almost drawing blood, and Cas is on fire, dizzy and gasping. He's so focussed on Dean's mouth, he doesn't register what else is happening until he slides his hands down Dean's hips and finds them crooked at an angle. His eyes fly open, and that's when he realises Dean is prepping himself one-handed, the other braced on the headboard. Everything is urgent, fast; Dean twists on his own fingers, flush and trembling, and in an absurdly short amount of time, he pulls them out again, his lube-slick grasp sliding up and down Cas's cock.

'Gonna ride you,' he gasps, and thrusts himself down onto Cas, gripping the headboard with both hands to keep himself upright. Cas makes a punched-out sound, and Dean whines in his throat, seating himself deeper, tight and hot. Cas runs his hands up his back, and as Dean starts to move, he leans in and kisses his chest, sucking his nipples, teeth grazing the flesh. Dean widens his stance, rocking in place hard enough to jolt the whole bed, banging it against the wall; he digs the fingers of one hand through Cas's hair and grips, forcing his head back, savage and demanding.

'Look at me,' he pants, 'fuck, watch me fuck you, watch –'

'Dean, Jesus, I –'

' _Harder,_ ' he snarls, and Cas grips his hips, his ass, and thrusts upwards as Dean pushes down, throat bared as Dean keeps gripping his hair. Cas's eyes are watering; his neck is starting to hurt, the angle is so sharp, the muscles in his back and thighs aching with the jaggedness of it all, and in a flash, he realises he's terrified that they shouldn't be doing this; or worse, that they should, and it's only him who can't, that he's too weak, or selfish, or cowardly, or _something_. His safeword's on the tip of his tongue – he can almost feel it there, fine and sharp as a fishbone – when Dean suddenly drops his hand and whispers, 'Shit, Cas,' and kisses him with all the gentleness that was previously absent, fingers trailing featherlight along his jaw.

Castiel moans; his arms come up to wrap Dean's back, holding him. Dean is panting, not-quite-crying as he presses their foreheads together, hips barely moving as he rocks against him, letting go of the headboard to hold Cas in turn, until the only thing keeping either of them upright is the other. Cas leans his head against Dean's chest, kissing the hollow of his throat, and when Dean brushes his lips to his ear, he comes, his orgasm a slow, electric shudder. His fingers cup the back of Dean's neck, stroking gently as he kisses up his throat, along his jaw, the gesture no less possessive for being light.

'Let me finish you,' he murmurs, and Dean nods, going almost boneless as Cas pulls out and lays him back on the covers, kissing along his chest, ribs, stomach, licking his hips, stroking his thighs. Finally, Cas swallows him down, and Dean cries out, bucking up into his mouth. His fingers slide through Cas's hair, but this time, there's no force to it, no pressure; just touch, plain and wanting. Cas licks and sucks, his efforts more languid than urgent, and when Dean comes he's deep enough that he barely tastes it, swallowing in reflex. He pulls off, satisfied, and moves to lie alongside Dean, pulling him against his chest, kissing his cheeks and temple.

'Was that what you needed?' Cas asks, softly.

'Yes.' Dean shudders, throwing a leg over Cas's thigh, clinging on like a limpet. He kisses his collarbone, but his eyes are worried. 'Was it all right for you, though? I didn't mean to be so rough, I don't know what happened, I –'

'Shh.' Cas hugs him closer, thumbing a circle against his back. 'It was fine. I had a... a moment, I suppose, where I was worried, but you pulled back. You made it better.'

Dean shudders all over. 'If I'd hurt you –'

'You didn't.'

'But if I hadn't stopped –'

'I would've used my safeword.'

'But if I hadn't listened –'

'You would've.'

'You don't know that.'

'I do. I trust you, Dean. And I... I know you, I think. Or understand you, like you said.' Cas strokes his lover's cheek, and wonders if he'll ever tire of eyes so impossibly green, even wet as they are now, like spring leaves after rain. 'You're a kind man, and a good one. Even in the extremis of pain or grief or fear, you think of others before yourself. You notice people; you notice _me,_ and I... you make me want to be worthy of you, of what you see in me.' He twines their fingers together, bringing their joined hands up to kiss Dean's wrist. 'You mend things. You build cars and fairy castles and stories, you map out pleasure in me like I didn't think was possible. You're beautiful, but it's not just your skin; it's how you inhabit yourself, the way you move and breathe; every atom of you is beautiful, Dean. I could paint you for the rest of my life, and never catch all your colours.'

Dean's eyes widen. 'Cas,' he breathes. He can't seem to manage anything else. Slowly, he levers himself up, stretching out along Castiel's body, warm and heavy and perfect, and kisses him like he can't quite believe it's permitted, and Cas kisses back the same, because he can't, either.

They stay like that for a long time, and for once, the world lets them.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: non-graphic description of past sexual abuse.


	15. Chapter 15

'You're sure you don't want me to come in with you?' Cas asks, for what feels like the eightieth time that morning, but is probably only the third. They're in his car, parked in the garage below Gabriel's office, and Dean's hands are curled in his lap to stop them shaking.

'I'm sure,' he says, though he isn't; of course he isn't. His nightmares woke him up three times last night, each iteration richer and more detailed than the last, as though finally acknowledging the reality of Alistair's abuse has opened some mental floodgate. Each time, Cas gentled him back to sleep, his touch the only safety in a world of fear, and right now, Dean's too grateful for it to even feel guilty for dumping this on him, because as bad as the first bout was, if he'd had to deal with the second and third alone – if he'd realised the truth on a night without Cas – he knows, with a sick, visceral certainty, that he'd likely have harmed himself. The fact that he's only shaking right now and not having a full-blown panic attack is a testament to Castiel's presence, and the thought of recounting everything to Gabe, alone, is almost paralyzing.

But he has to do this. The whole point of the exercise is to see Alistair locked up forever, and if Dean can't find the courage to speak without Cas in the privacy of Gabriel's office, then there's no way he can speak on a witness stand, either. So he has to try. If he can't – if he breaks down – then he'll call Cas back, and they'll try again another time, just like they agreed over breakfast. But first, he has walk in there.

And tell the twin of a man who maybe raped him that Alistair Sharp definitely did.

'Oh, god.' He leans his head on the dashboard, trying to breathe. 'That was a lie, I'm not sure, I'm not fine.'

Cas puts a hand on his back, rubbing gently. 'It's all right. We can sit here as long as you want. Or I can call Gabe, arrange to do this another day –'

'No.' Dean grits out the word. He shuts his eyes in a long blink, takes a deep breath, and forces himself to sit up again. 'No. I go home, all I'm going to do is sit and think about what a fucking coward I am, and don't even say it, Cas, I know it's not true, but that won't stop me feeling like it is, and I can't, I can't cope with that, OK? I have no good options right now, so I've just, I've gotta try and pick the one that makes me feel the least crazy, and this is it. Doesn't mean I like it, doesn't mean I'm not fucking terrified I'm just gonna get up there and vomit all over your brother's desk –' Cas chuckles at that, and Dean manages a smile, '– but I have to try. But, uh. Maybe you could walk me up there, at least?'

Cas leans over and kisses him. 'Whatever you want.'

They get out of the car, and Dean sneaks a glance at Castiel. He's wearing Dean's clothes rather than his rumpled business things, a pair of dark jeans and an ancient Nirvana tee chosen solely because Dean laughed when he first put it on. The latter article is slightly too big for him, showing off the tattoos at his collar as well as his arms, and when combined with his messy hair, the overall effect is lip-bitingly hot. Which is the easiest, simplest level on which to analyse his feelings for Cas, and therefore, ostensibly, the safest. Because Castiel Novak – a man he's known for barely five days – is also the only person who knows even a third of his secrets, let alone all of them, and who, even more incredibly, hasn't flinched from a single one of them. He fits into Dean's life like a key in what he'd thought was a broken lock, turning him over, opening him up, and last night –

Last night, Dean woke up screaming, and Cas held him. He tried to get up and drink himself into a dreamless torpor, and Cas stopped him, told him he was safe, kissed and stroked and warmed him until, impossibly, Dean slept; and then again, and again, until the nightmares receded. There's a part of him now that's only whole because Castiel Novak refused to let it break, and that's the sort of truth that could destroy him if he looks at it too closely, if he tries to name what he feels for Cas beyond _lust_ and _trust_ and _wanting_. So Dean looks at Cas's body instead, revelling quietly in the fact that he can still desire sex – have sex, even – without completely imploding, which right now feels like an almost unimaginable victory, and contemplates the circumstances under which he might have it again, preferably soon.

As though sensing Dean's need for touch, Cas pulls him into a hug, nuzzling fondly at his neck, hands sliding up his sides. Dean laughs softly, gripping Cas's hips, his fingers sliding down to stroke the backs of his thighs.

'You keep that up, we'll never make it inside,' Cas murmurs, and captures his mouth in a kiss. It's gentle and teasing all at once, a soft slide of lips and tongue, and it steadies Dean like nothing else.

'I can do this,' he says, when they break apart. 'I can do this.'

'I believe you,' says Cas, and slips an arm around his waist, keeping it there as they walk over to the lifts. Dean curls an arm around him in turn, and they stay like that the whole way up to Gabriel's office on the ninth floor, where a sardonic-looking secretary glances at them and says into her intercom, 'Your brother and Mr Winchester are here, Mr Novak.'

'Send them through,' says Gabriel's voice, tinny and distorted through the speaker. Dean goes slightly weak, but Cas keeps him upright, supporting them as they head into a corner office crowded with bookshelves, filing cabinets and more paperwork than can comfortably fit in any of them.

Gabriel glances up at their entry. He's dressed in a charcoal grey suit with a salmon shirt, and as he sets aside a file, he raises an eyebrow, first at Dean's bruised eye, and then at Cas's clothes.

'Nice look, Cassie.'

Cas grins. 'I thought so.'

'Really, though – I know you're protective, but you don't need to be here for this. In fact, my boss would likely prefer it if you weren't. I promise, I'll take good care of him. Better care than whoever gave him that shiner, certainly.' He frowns. 'Also, shouldn't you be at work?'

'I quit,' says Castiel, lips curving at his brother's shocked expression.

'Seriously?'

'Seriously.'

Gabe's eyes dart to Dean. 'Is this your doing?'

'Sort of,' says Dean, just as Cas says, 'Yes.'

Gabriel looks between them, then bursts out laughing. 'Well, I'll be damned. It's about time! And as for you –' he looks Dean over, grinning, '– _you_ , sir, have just gone up in my estimation.'

Dean goes to answer, but nausea chokes him into silence; he's not aware of pulling away, but suddenly Cas is steering him into a chair, helping him sit before he falls, a warm hand resting on his shoulder. 'Pretty sure you won't feel that way for long,' he says, his voice sounding faint in his own ears.

Instantly, Gabe's gaze sharpens. 'What makes you say that?'

Dean opens his mouth, but the answer sticks in his throat. Helpless, he leans into Cas's touch, turning to look up at him, hating that he needs help, that he can't do this alone. Cas squeezes his shoulder, the gesture both acknowledgement and support.

'Luke's involved with Alistair,' says Castiel, bluntly. 'Or he was, at least, when Dean knew him.'

Gabriel goes perfectly still. 'You're sure?' he says – to Dean, not Cas.

Dean swallows, throat dry. 'Lucifer,' he croaks. 'I... I overheard them talking about Lucifer.'

For a moment, Gabe looks furious. Then he sighs, running a hand down his face, and growls out, 'That lying fucker.'

Dean can feel Cas's surprise in the way his hand twitches. 'You knew?'

'I suspected.' Gabriel looks tired. 'Our fair city's seedier side is an incestuous place. I've heard Dante's mentioned a few times in relation to Alistair's underlings, but every time I ask Luke about it, he swears up and down that he's not involved, and there's never been enough evidence to force the issue.' He turns to Dean again, mouth set in a firm line. 'I need you to tell me everything you remember about that conversation. Even small details could be important.'

Dean's face feels stiff, cracking around the mouth as he talks. 'That might be difficult, considering I was drugged at the time.'

'Drugged?' Now Gabriel looks confused. 'You mean, you were _on_ drugs, or –?'

'I mean,' says Dean, as brittle and calm as shattered glass, 'that Alistair Sharp drugged me, and raped me, and shared me with his _friends_ , and while I was – while it was happening, I sometimes woke up, I overheard, and they talked about Lucifer, but I couldn't see, I don't know –' his voice is rising, panic clawing up his throat, '– god, I _don't know_ , he could've been there, he could've been one of them, he could've – or they were just, just _talking_ about him, while I was – like I was _furniture_ –'

He breaks off, nearly hyperventilating, and suddenly Cas is kneeling beside him, pulling him close, and Dean has just enough time to catch the horrified expression on Gabriel's face before he buries his own in Cas's shoulder.

'I've got you,' Cas murmurs, speaking quietly into his ear. His hands are soothing, stroking up Dean's sides. 'It's OK, I've got you.'

'I know.' It comes out a whisper. Dean grips the fabric of Cas's shirt – of _his_ shirt – and breathes in, trying to calm down. Cas smells like Dean's soap and shampoo, with just a hint of pine from the dresser the shirt's been lying in, but underneath is something stronger, a salt-sharp, savoury warmth that's entirely Cas. The combination makes him feel safe, like he's home in bed, and as his breathing steadies, he's able to pull away, forcing himself to meet Gabriel's stricken gaze.

For a moment, no one says anything. Then Gabriel seems to steel himself; his face goes blank, and he says, in a surprisingly calm voice, 'Cassie, would you step outside for a minute, please?'

Cas goes rigid. 'If you think I'm just going to –'

'It's all right, Cas,' says Dean, though his pulse ticks up again. In a weak attempt at humour, he adds, 'I think I can take him.'

'I promise, that won't be necessary,' says Gabriel. And then, more quietly, 'Please, Cassie. It's important.'

Cas hesitates, looking at Dean. Then he nods, just once, and gets to his feet. 'I'll be right outside,' he says, fixing Gabriel with a meaningful stare.

'I know,' says Gabe, and watches him go, unwavering as the door clicks shut again.

'All right,' says Dean, heart pounding. 'Let me have it.'

Gabriel blinks. 'I'm sorry?'

A hard knot forms in Dean's throat. 'Don't fuck me about, dude. You already think I'm a whore, and god only knows, you don't approve of me screwing your little brother, so just... whatever ugly you gotta call me, say to me, whatever, just get it over with, OK?'

For a long moment, Gabriel doesn't move. Then, without breaking eye contact, he reaches into his desk drawer, rummages briefly, and pulls out a small, white card, sliding it across the desk.

Confused, Dean looks from the card to Gabe and back again.

'What is this?'

'Someone who can help.'

Hesitantly, Dean picks it up, reads it.

 

_Dr Benjamin Lafitte, MD, PhD_

_Psychologist_

 

There's an address and phone number, too, but Dean barely notices them. He looks at Gabriel again, suddenly frightened in a way he wasn't before. 'I'm not delusional,' he says, hands shaking. 'I'm not, you can't just get some shrink to say it's all in my head –'

'God, no!' Gabriel looks appalled. He swallows, pale throat bobbing against his tie, and if Dean didn't know any better, he'd swear the other man was scared, too. 'He's just... he's very good, with sexual trauma cases. Understanding.' He exhales, long and slow, then he says, in a much softer voice, 'You're braver than I was.'

Dean is so stunned, he almost feels lightheaded. 'You –?'

'I was nineteen.' Gabriel smiles; a sad, small thing. 'I'd just been dumped. I went to a bar that didn't ask for ID. I was alone. First I got drunk, and then I got roofied. I wasn't conscious the first time, but I was the second.' His fingers curl against the desk. 'Cassie doesn't know. None of them do. It was years before I told anyone.'

Something clicks into place. 'That's why you were so worried,' Dean says, catching Gabriel's gaze. 'When Cas didn't show for work, after we – you thought it'd happened to him, too.'

'I did.'

'Oh.' Dean doesn't know what to say to that. 'I'm sorry.'

'There's no earthly reason why you should be. I was an ass about it.' He takes a breath, nods at the card in Dean's hand. 'Anyway. Like I said, he's good. You can tell him I sent you.'

'I'll... I'll try. Thank you.' Dean feels obscurely small. 'Why tell me this?'

'Because I need you to understand something.'

'Understand what?'

'That if my brother... if Luke was at all involved in what happened to you – if he knew, even – I need you to understand that I'll hold him accountable. That I'll hold _Alistair_ accountable.' His gaze hardens. 'Whatever other charges we bring against him, if you're willing to testify to it, rape will be among them. He won't wriggle out of it.'

Dean stares at his hands. His eyes prickle hotly, but he's not going to cry. He's _not_. 'I don't get it.' He looks at Gabriel, utterly lost. 'He's your _twin_ , man. Even with what happened to you, why the fuck would you believe me?'

'Because Cassie does,' Gabe says, simply. 'And because I know for a fact that more than one rape charge has been filed in relation to Dante's, and Luke hasn't done a damn thing to make that club safer. He's perfectly content to run a watering hole for predators, and I... I should've known better than to say what I did, about you going there. I was frightened. That doesn't excuse it.'

Dean makes a sound that's almost laughter. 'Your family is messed up, you know that?'

'It's been said,' says Gabriel wryly. He pauses, running the edge of a thumbnail against the file on his desk. 'So, you and Cassie. It's serious.'

It's not a question. Dean nods.

'Did he really quit his job?'

'And then some. His boss was cheating the company. Owes him backpay and everything. It's a whole thing.'

'Figures.' Gabriel snorts. 'I went to a few Sandover drinks nights. Place was rife with assholes.' He hesitates, toying with a pen. 'You can tell him, you know.'

'I'm sorry?'

'About me. Cassie. You can tell him, if you want.' Gabriel doesn't quite smile. 'Just because I'm too big of a coward to do it myself doesn't mean he shouldn't know.'

'You're not a coward,' Dean says, remembering his own thoughts in the car.

'Know me a little longer, you might change your mind.'

'Somehow, I doubt that.'

Gabriel shoots him a quick, narrow look, like he suspects Dean is mocking him – and then he smiles, that cunning, foxish look that seems to be his default expression, and says, 'So, not to seem ungrateful, but what else can you tell me about Alistair Sharp? Anything he said about business associates, plans, dates, even little things – it all helps.'

'Oh, dude.' Dean grins, bright and savage. 'I can do _way_ better than that.'

'Prove it,' Gabriel says.

So Dean does. He tells him about the properties Alistair keeps in his wife's maiden name (with her first name conveniently misspelled, and a middle name omitted, just to make the record-finding more difficult) where he liked to take Dean, and – presumably – still takes Dean's replacements. He tells him about the existence of something called Project Azazel, which he wasn't supposed to know about, and Gabriel's eyes go wide when Dean tells him who Alistair was discussing it with. He tells him the licence plates, makes and models of the cars Alistair used to ferry him about, which Dean, being a mechanic, remembered compulsively, even when the plates would sometimes change. He tells him about Alistair's parties – who was there, what happened at them, snippets of overheard gossip – voice shaking as he does so, because it was always after those gatherings that he woke up with lost time, and though he has to dig his fingers into his palms to get it out, he makes that clear to Gabriel, too.

He tells him everything, the truth pouring out in a river of words, and Gabriel writes it all down, pen flying over the paper in rapid shorthand.

'Holy Christ,' he says, when Dean finally falls silent. 'That's... Jesus.'

'You can use it, then?'

'Are you kidding me?' Gabriel stares at him. 'You testify to even half of this, and with what we've already got, I can nail the fucker. The cars alone – you have no idea how hard it is to prove his ownership, but with the plate changes, the fact that he sent them out for you, that it was a regular thing – god almighty. I could kiss you right now.'

'I think Cas might have something to say about that,' says Dean, but his ears heat all the same.

Gabriel snorts. 'You think? He practically broke my face just for scaring you out of his apartment; if I actually laid a hand on you, he'd probably cut it off. And speaking of which –' he hits the intercom button, '– Meg, will you ask my brother to come back in, please?'

'With _pleasure_ ,' comes the dry response.

Seconds later, Cas comes crashing in, looking wild-eyed and tense. 'A minute, you said!' he snaps, glaring at Gabriel. 'Not a damn hour!'

'Sorry, Cas,' Dean says, sheepish as he stands. 'We just got a bit –'

Cas shuts him up with an urgent kiss, hands cradling his face. It's tender and passionate and Dean melts into it like the rest of the world has wholly ceased to exist, his arms wrapping around Cas's back. Long fingers slide through his hair, stroking along his scalp, and when they push closer together, Dean realises Cas is shaking; that he's been worried the entire time, silent and fretting. A pang goes through him, and Dean kisses back more fervently, sliding his hands up under the hem of Cas's shirt, caressing his skin, trying to let him know without words that it's all right, he's all right, he's sorry.

Ignoring a pointed cough from Gabriel, Cas pulls back slowly, keeping his hands in place as he looks Dean over.

'– distracted,' Dean says, and presses a kiss to the corner of Cas's mouth. 'But we're done, now.'

Cas gently thumbs his cheek. 'And you're all right?'

'I'm all right. Promise.'

In answer, Cas presses their foreheads together, and Dean shuts his eyes, savouring the rightness of it.

Gabriel coughs again, louder than before.

'Sorry,' Cas says, in the unrepentantly happy tones of someone who isn't remotely sorry at all. He steps back, and rather than lose all contact with him, Dean lets his right hand brush Cas's arm, sliding down until Cas takes hold of it, squeezing gently.

Gabriel looks between them, a small smile tugging his lips. 'Huh,' he says.

Cas rolls his eyes. 'Does that mean we can go?'

'What's the rush, Cassie? It's not like you've got a job to get to.'

'No, but as of twenty minutes ago, I do have an ex-HR-manager who's desperate to have me come in and sort out the mess my ex-boss left behind, because apparently, everyone else is incompetent.' He glances at Dean. 'I said I'd think about it. Zachariah deserves what he gets, but that doesn't mean the whole accounts department should suffer with him, even if they are dumbasses.'

'You should go in,' says Dean, and this time, he really does mean it. He feels exorcised, like he's hacked up tar from his lungs, and as much as he wants to take Cas straight to bed, he's also feeling strong enough for solitude. He smooths his free hand over the lines of the old Nirvana tee, liking the way it sits on him. 'Seriously. Go in looking just like this and watch their heads explode. Give everyone who never had the sense to hit on you a heart attack.' He curls his palm around Cas's hip, smiling. 'And then come back to me.'

Cas inhales sharply, thumbing a circle on the back of Dean's hand. 'You know, we could just skip that middle part.'

'Not in my office, you won't,' says Gabriel. Probably, the remark is meant to cool them down, but all it does is give Dean the mental image of Cas bending him over that big, wooden desk, or vice versa. He shivers pleasantly, and Gabriel, oblivious, adds, 'But if you can bear the time apart, Cassie, I'll drive you over myself. We can even grab a quick bite on the way.'

'And strand me at Sandover without transportation?'

'Oh, like you're to good to take a cab?'

'Strand you?' Dean asks. 'What about strand me? You drove us here.'

Cas looks at him, surprised. 'You wouldn't want to take the Porsche?'

Dean blinks. 'You'd let me drive it?'

'Why wouldn't I?'

'You've never seen me drive.'

'It's just a car, Dean. Besides, you're a mechanic; I'm pretty sure you know what you're doing.'

'OK!' says Gabriel, getting in ahead of Dean. He stands up, coming round to lean on the front of his desk. 'That's settled, then – Dean drives home, I take Cassie to Sandover, and then you get a cab back to your beloved. Done?'

'I –' Dean looks at Cas, a furious blush working its way up his neck at the word _beloved_. 'If that's fine with you, then I'm –'

'No, it's fine,' says Cas, looking similarly flustered, 'I just, if you're really sure you don't mind –'

'I'll be fine, Cas. I need to tidy up anyway, the house is a mess –'

'– the house is fine, Dean, but I shouldn't be more than a couple of hours –'

'Minus the time it'll take us to have lunch and get there and back,' says Gabriel, interrupting.

'– or three hours total, then,' says Cas, ignoring his brother, '– which takes us to, what, 4pm?'

'Or thereabouts,' says Gabriel.

'That works for me,' says Dean, and all at once, he's thinking of how to use those three hours to do something nice for Cas, because god only knows, he deserves it. Dean was meant to make dinner yesterday, which never happened; now that he's got time and the use of a car, though (his own piece of junk barely qualifies), he can drive to the market, buy some good ingredients, make something nice in the slow cooker. Tidy up, like he said, and maybe – shit, can he make Cas a present? Is there time for that, too? Maybe something small, like a necklace – he can use that leather cording he bought a while back, remodel one of his scrap metal charms to fit – or no, god, he's such a complete dork, there's no way Cas wants something like that – or maybe he does, he liked the castle, Dean doesn't think he was lying about that, but if Cas doesn't like the necklace, he can always say it was a joke, play it off that way –

'Dean?' Cas says, squeezing his hand. 'Are you all right?'

Dean laughs. 'God, sorry, I completely zoned out. Just thinking about what to get for dinner. Yeah, Cas, I'm fine.' He rubs the back of his neck, smiling. 'So, you'll be home around four?'

'That's the plan.' He pulls his keys out of his pocket, pressing them into Dean's hand. It's such a small gesture, but despite what he does for a living, Dean's been wary about borrowing cars ever since Aaron died, and from the way Cas looks at him, it's clear he doesn't miss the significance of it. 'You'll be fine,' he says, a smile in his eyes that Dean alone can see, and it just about undoes him, the idea that anyone could look at him like that.

'Thanks,' he says, voice suddenly hoarse. The keys slide into his pocket alongside the psychologist's card, and all at once, he doesn't give a shit what Gabriel thinks of him; he hooks his fingers through Cas's belt loops, tugs him close and kisses him into breathlessness.

When they break apart, Gabriel has a hand over his eyes, a single iris visible through two half-scissored fingers. 'Can I look now?' he asks, mock-plaintive.

'You can look,' says Cas, grinning. Gabriel makes a disgusted noise and stalks around them, throwing open his office door, and after sharing an amused look, they follow him out.

'Meg, I'm going to lunch,' says Gabriel, breezing past his secretary's desk. 'I'll be back around two, but if Malkovitch comes by before then –'

'– I'll stall him,' says Meg the secretary, in the bored, practised tones of a woman who knows her boss's drill. And then, in a slightly more hopeful voice, 'Bring me back a pastry?'

'Always,' says Gabe, and leads them off to the elevators.

They part ways in the garage, Gabriel heaving an exaggerated sigh as Cas gives Dean a kiss on the cheek. Dean watches the brothers go, then lets himself into the Porsche, taking his time adjusting the seat and mirrors. It's the first time he's been really alone since the night he got blackout drunk, and given his usual habits, it's odd that it feels so... odd. He probes the feeling like a loose tooth, testing the edges, but it's not until he's halfway to the market that he realises what the difference is: he's used to feeling lonely by himself, and right now, he doesn't. It's not just that he's driving Cas's car; it's that he has Cas himself to look forward to.

The knowledge warms him from the inside out, leaving him sentimental enough that, along with the groceries and a bottle of red wine – chosen for Cas more than him, because Cas likes cabernets – he also buys a box of chocolates and some flowers, because he's exactly that much of an unimaginative sap, and after everything he's done, he needs to show Cas that he's trying, that he wants this. _God, do I want this_. In fact, it's becoming increasingly hard to remember if he's ever wanted anything else, or more, than he currently wants Cas.

Shopping done, he babies the Porsche home, parks carefully and heads inside. It doesn't take long to get the chilli into the cooker, and while it simmers, he cleans the kitchen, changes the sheets in the bedroom, puts a load of washing on, including Cas's work things, and wrangles the lounge room into some semblance of order, or as close to one as the messy worktables ever allow. He feels slightly embarrassed about the flowers, and ends up putting them in a vase on the table, setting the chocolates underneath like it's a miniature Christmas tree, and once he's put the necklace together – a leather cord, strung with one of his scrap metal charms in the shape of a bee – he leaves it coiled on the chocolate box, feeling half proud of the effort, and half like a complete idiot.

It's 3pm by then, and with an hour left to kill, he runs himself a hot bath, pottering about the hall and bathroom in his boxers as the tub fills. Not wanting to miss any texts from Cas, he sets his phone down beside the sink, and is just debating whether or not to grab himself a book to read, too, when there's a knock at the door.

Smiling, Dean turns off the taps and heads out into the hall. Cas must have finished early.

'Took your sweet time,' he says, opening the door. 'I was almost –'

The words die on his tongue, and Dean's heart just about stops, too, because it's not Cas at the door; it's a gun with a man attached. Dean is so preoccupied with the weapon, in fact, that it's not until he's taken two steps backwards under its encroaching direction that he looks past the muzzle for long enough recognise the savage, biting smile of the man behind it, and when does, the ground drops out of the world.

'Oh, god,' he whispers. 'No. Please, no.'

The vile smile widens. 'Hello, Dean,' says Alistair.

 


	16. Chapter 16

Gabriel doesn't speak as he starts the car, nor does he speak as he drives them out of the garage. What he does do – pointedly, and in contrast to his unnatural silence – is repeatedly glance at Cas, the quick stares interspersed with meaningful quirks of his eyebrows. Castiel tries to ignore him, but being watched by Gabriel is like being watched by a playfully malicious cat: the moment you let your guard down is the moment he'll pounce, and the past twenty-four hours – hell, the past  _week_ – have already featured enough emotional turbulence without courting more. Still, it goes against every fraternal impulse just to give Gabe what he wants, and so he tries, stubbornly, to stick it out, his resolve lasting until the first set of lights.

'Goddamit, Gabe, would you stop looking at me like that? Whatever you want to say, just say it!'

'Cranky,' Gabriel tuts, leaning forward to squint at the intersection. 'I swear, the traffic here gets worse every day.'

'Gabriel –'

Unexpectedly, he sighs. 'I owe you an apology.'

'You're damn right you – what?'

'I owe you an apology,' Gabe says again, as though this is a perfectly characteristic thing to admit. Not that Gabriel never apologises; it's just that Cas is accustomed to having to wring the sorry out of him like water from a shammy. Having one offered without so much as a verbal prompt is downright unnerving – so much so, in fact, that it renders him paranoid.

'What did you do?' he blurts, half-scared, half-furious. 'What did you say to him?'

'Jesus, would you relax? I was a perfect gentleman!' Gabe scowls, but the expression softens almost instantly. He shakes his head, lips twisted. 'God, I can't even joke about that. The fact that he's willing to testify, the courage it takes... do you understand how stupidly fucking brave your boyfriend's being about this?'

'Better than you do, I think,' says Cas, quietly. 'Gabe, until yesterday, he didn't even know that what Alistair did was real. He's had nightmares about it for years, but until we talked it out, he thought that's all they were.'

Gabriel pales. 'Christ. How do you even start a conversation like that?'

Cas looks away. 'I had to. He... in his sleep, he said Luke's name. Lucifer. And  _don't._ ' 

'Christ,' Gabe says again, and there's a definite shake in his voice. 'Christ almighty, but I can't get my head around it. Luke.  _Luke_ , Cassie. I mean, it's not like he's ever been a saint, and that fucking club of his, you know what it's like, but something like this – this sort of abuse, the  _cruelty_ of it, I can't – if he was there, if he knew, screw therapy; I'm going to need an assload of benzedrine to even deal with the paperwork.'

'You're in therapy?' Cas asks. He means it as an aside, a way to lighten the mood, and is therefore utterly unprepared for Gabriel's answer.

'For six months now, yeah. It's a work in progress.' He rolls his eyes at Castiel's expression, but he's nervous when he adds, 'Oh, come on, now. Don't look so shocked, our whole family's messed up. Or do I really seem that well-adjusted to you?'

'Compared with what yardstick, exactly?' Cas says. 'Like you say, our family's messed up.'

'Actually, it was Dean who said it first, but the observation stands. Which is why, returning to the original point, I owe you an apology.'

'You'll have to be more specific than that.'

'You and Dean,' says Gabriel, giving him another Look; though in fairness, he's also trying to navigate a roundabout. 'Just because –  _asshole!_ ' he yells suddenly, flipping the bird at the driver of an orange Camaro with the temerity to cut him off, '– sorry, Cassie – just because I have enough trust issues fill the Grand Canyon doesn't mean –'

' _Trust issues?_ ' Cas says, gently mocking. 

'Hey, I'm baring my soul, here. Respect my emotional vulnerabilities much?'

'Sorry.' He tucks his chin: a gesture of contrition. 'Please, continue.'

'Thanks ever so.' Gabe pulls up at a new and famously lengthy set of lights, sighing as he settles his hands on the wheel. 'Look, all I'm saying is, I may have been projecting a little. Just because I don't trust new people – new lovers especially – doesn't mean you shouldn't. I've been overprotective, overbearing and unbearable by turns, and maybe I could justify it before, but I can't now. So, I'm sorry.'

Cas looks at him curiously. 'Why can't you now?'

'Because you're happy,' says Gabriel, softly. 'Happy with Dean, I mean, and it wasn't until I saw you with him that I realised how  _un_ happy you usually are. It's like that urban legend, you know, about the frog boiling to death because it keeps adapting to hotter and hotter water – I've gotten so used to seeing you all –' he waves a hand, apparently unable to summon the appropriate word, '– and now you're all –' he gestures at Castiel's body, '– and you finally look like  _you_ , you know?'

'It's just a shirt, Gabriel.'

'I don't mean the  _shirt_ , you moron. If anything, the shirt is a metaphor.' The lights change, and Gabriel accelerates through them faster than is strictly necessary. 'I mean you looking at Dean Winchester like he's the moon of your life, and him looking at you like you're his. Or are you going to try and pretend the two of you weren't just gratuitously eyefucking in my office?'

Castiel feels his cheeks warm. 'You don't think a little affection was warranted, under the circumstances?'

'Clearly, yes, but Cassie, you dated Amelia for a year and a half, and in all that time, I don't think I ever saw you give her more than a peck in public, and that includes her birthday. Dean, you're apart for barely an hour, albeit under stressful circumstances, and suddenly you're all over him, and I don't just mean just the kissing; you were practically making  _me_ blush, which is saying something. You gave me a black eye over him, took a day off work just to make the guy breakfast – hell, you  _quit_ work, and about damn time – and maybe I'm reading too much into all this, but from where I'm standing –'

'I think I'm in love with him,' Cas says, the words slipping out in a gulp, and Gabriel brakes so hard, it's a miracle he doesn't cause an accident.

'Say that again?'

Castiel shuts his eyes. 'I'm in love with him. Which is insane, don't think I don't appreciate how insane this is, I wasn't even looking for someone, but I just –' he looks at Gabriel, utterly helpless, a strangled laugh forcing its way past his lips, '– god, our family really is messed up, isn't it? Soldiers and shrinks and sexual predators, that's who we've got for siblings, and our parents are fucking sadists, it's a wonder we're even functional –'

'Sadists?' says Gabriel sharply. 'You've never said that before.'

'Jesus fucking Christ, Gabriel, I didn't think I had to, after what they did.'

'What do you mean, what they did? To who? You?'

'Yes, me!' He stares at him, hurt and furious. 'What, you think they made the right call?'

'Made the right –' Gabe jerks the wheel, tyres squealing as he pulls up into a parking space. Shutting the engine off, he turns in his seat and says, angrily, 'Cassie, I swear to god, I have no idea what the fuck you're talking about.'

'I went away.' Cas grits out the words. 'You and Luke were nine, I was seven, and I went away for  _two months_ , Gabe, don't you dare sit there and tell me you don't remember –'

'What, that?' Now it's Gabriel's turn to stare. 'Cassie, you were contagious, remember? Of course they sent you to hospital –'

'I was  _what_ ?' 

'Contagious,' Gabe repeats, eyebrows furrowing. 'You got sick, remember? Some weird virus from poking around the in the woods, I came home and the ambulance had already – what? What's so funny?'

'Nothing,' gasps Cas, who suddenly can't stop laughing, jagged barks as he runs a hand down his face. 'God, absolutely nothing. This isn't funny. It's not.'

'So stop laughing, then,' says Gabriel, a note of worry creeping into his tone. 'You feeling OK, Cassie?'

'I'm fine, Gabriel. Honestly.' He reins himself in and smiles – a little crazily, if his brother's reaction is anything to go by, but right now, he feels entitled to some crazy – and unclips his belt, opening the car door. 'Look, forget it. Let's just get lunch, OK?'

'Oh, no.' Gabriel rummages in the glovebox, grabs a handful of loose paper, and hurries to catch up. 'You're not wriggling out of this conversation, bucko.'

'I'm not wriggling,' Castiel huffs, 'I'm – did you just park in a loading zone?'

'What, like anywhere else is free?' says Gabriel, shoving his papers – parking tickets, Cas realises – under his windscreen wiper. 'But lo! The authorities have caught me!'

'Gabriel,' says Cas, in a tone of chiding rebuke, 'you  _are_ the authorities.' 

'And yet, I still need fake parking tickets to get a spot on Main. We live in an unjust world, Cassie.' Gabriel claps him on the shoulder. 'Now, where do you want to eat?'

As hard as he's trying not to laugh, Cas can't quite suppress a chuckle when Gabe leads him into Black Cherry.

'I brought Dean here,' he says, in response to his brother's unasked question. 'That first night, when we left Dante's. We had hot chocolate.'

Gabe snorts, scanning the lunch options. 'Only you could pick up a stranger at a club that gross and think to bring them here.' He slaps the menu down on the table, his expression somewhere between awe and annoyance. 'You're not in love with him. Happy, yes, that's one thing – I'll even grant that it's serious – but love? Really?'

'Really.'

With typical timing, the waitress picks this moment to come and take their orders: a turkey and cranberry wrap with a piece of cake on the side for Gabe, and a toasted ham and cheese sandwich for Cas, who finds himself craving comfort food. As their menus are cleared away, Gabriel eyes him craftily over the top of his water glass.

'All right, Casanova. How's this: tell me five endearing, only-a-partner-would-know-it things about Dean Winchester that have nothing to do with his bedroom skills or his involvement with Alistair Sharp, and maybe I'll entertain the notion.  _Maybe_ .' He sets the glass down, steeples his fingers, and sets his chin on the upraised tips. 'I'm waiting.'

'I don't have to prove anything to you –'

'Does that mean you can't, or that you won't?'

'Fine.' Irritably, Cas crosses his arms and leans back in the booth, raising a finger to tick off each point. 'One, he only went to college because his little brother applied for him; he didn't think he had the grades. Two, he likes to make things – beautiful, clever things, like models and toys and scarves – but he's embarrassed about it. Three, he figured out he was gay because of a Monty Python sketch. Four, every drawing he's ever been given by a child at the library is framed in his hall, because he loves kids, and god, Gabe, if you knew what he'd done for his brother –'

He breaks off, momentarily overwhelmed with anger on Dean's behalf, and when he speaks again, the words come out in a rush. 'Five, he's kind and sweet and funny, he likes my cooking and Kurt Vonnegut and Luis Royo, he thinks I could make a living as an artist, he smiles in his sleep, he likes tattoos, he fixes cars for a living but he hates his own because it's a punishment, because he thinks he has to suffer for things that aren't his fault, because so many people have failed him but he still woke up from a nightmare and asked if  _I_ was all right, and I don't give a shit what you think about me, Gabriel, I don't care if you think the best sex of my life doesn't count towards love, because he  _undoes_ me, I come apart for him and it makes me feel whole, and I don't, I don't understand how anyone could hurt him, how anyone could look at someone that good and brave and beautiful and want to do anything other than hold him, and I just, I –'

'You love him,' says Gabriel, softly. 'Jesus wept.'

'If you're mocking me –'

'I'm not.'

The waitress returns with their food, and Castiel eats his entire sandwich in about three bites, pulse hammering in his ears. Gabriel goes more slowly, as though savouring the pretext for silence as much as the food itself, leaving Cas to fidget in his seat. It's just after 2pm, and he can't quite tell if time is dragging or speeding, if he wants to linger with his brother or go straight home to Dean, do not pass Go, do not collect your former employer's mistakes. Without quite meaning to, he finds himself eating Gabriel's cake, as much to have something to do with his hands as because he's still hungry, and rather than protest, Gabe just waves the waitress over and orders a second slice.

'So,' he says, digging into his new piece of chocolate mud, 'in other news, our parents are sadists, apparently?'

Cas shoves his empty plate away, the cake sitting heavily in his stomach. 'Leave it, Gabe. I was being hyperbolic.'

'The hell you were.' He points an accusing spoon at Cas, the silver tip rimed with icing. 'In point of fact, that was about as honest as I've ever seen you get on the subject of our esteemed progenitors, and I'd rather not –'

His phone rings, cutting him off mid sentence, and Cas enjoys small, smug smile of satisfaction as Gabriel answers it.

'Gabriel Novak speaking, I – oh, for the love of god, Selwyn, use your damn eyes! No, I don't care if she's not at her desk, just go into my office and physically look, it's right there on the – yes, that's it! _Good_ boy! Now, was there anything else, or can I finish my – excellent.' He hangs up sharply, shoving the phone in his pocket, and mutters, 'Damn paralegals can't take a piss without written instructions.'

'Your autocracy is cruel, but fair,' says Cas, extending his spoon to steal a piece of Gabriel's cake, only to have the plate tugged out of reach.

'You already ate my first slice. Go order seconds, if you're that hungry.'

'Stolen cake tastes better.'

'Yeah, well, today I prefer mine with honesty.' He sighs, setting his spoon down. 'Cassie. Please. Just tell me.'

Castiel looks away. 'I wasn't sick. When we were kids, I mean. I wasn't contagious. I was just lonely. You had Luke, Anna had Michael – you all had someone, and I didn't. So I asked mom why I didn't have a twin, too. And she told me about Hannah, and how she was in Heaven.'

Gabe's mouth hangs open a little. 'Wait, you didn't know about her before then?'

'You did?' says Cas, surprised.

'Well, yeah. I mean, before you were born, there were two new cribs in the house – two of everything – and then you came home alone, and suddenly half the stuff vanished. Luke and I were big enough to notice. They had to tell us something.'

'I suppose.' Cas hesitates, because this is usually the point in a serious conversation where Gabriel interrupts with a joke, but instead, his brother just sits there, waiting for him to continue – which, a moment later, he does. 'Anyway. I understood that Hannah couldn't be with me, but I still wanted to feel close to her – I mean, mom said she was watching over me, so I figured that meant she could hear me, see me. So I started drawing her, talking to her. She wasn't quite an imaginary friend, but it helped.'

'I think I remember that,' Gabe says, slowly. 'Your shadow-twin, that's what Luke called her. You drew her everywhere. I'm surprised dad didn't tell you to cut it out.'

'He did,' Cas says. He's starting to get angry again, though not necessarily at his brother. 'Gabriel, _think_. He was always away on business, and when he came back from that month's trip, I was talking to our dead sister.' He can't quite keep the hurt from his voice. 'All these years, did you really never question where they sent me? _Why_ they sent me? It was a children's psychiatric clinic, not a hospital, and I stayed there until I stopped drawing her. Or anything else, for that matter. For years,' he adds, softly.

Gabriel's eyes go wide, and Cas just looks at him, waiting for the other implications to hit, not sure if he feels sadder or more satisfied when they do. It's a strange moment, watching his own history be rewritten – or corrected, rather – just from the play of expressions on Gabriel's face, the way he transitions from outrage to shock to sympathy and back again, each change an old incident given new context.

'Oh, god.' His brother runs a hand over his face. 'I need a drink.'

'Just you?' says Cas, raising an eyebrow.

'We,' says Gabriel firmly. ' _We_ need a drink.' And he signals the waitress again, ordering them each a beer. They sit in silence until the bottles arrive, then clink and sip with fraternal synchronicity.

'Does Dean know?' Gabe asks, suddenly. 'About Hannah, and – and the rest of it?'

'No. I mean, not really. Not yet. But I want to tell him.' He smiles, the expression warming him more than the alcohol. 'The first morning with him, I told him all my siblings were twins, and the first thing he asked was whether I'd grown up wanting one, too, and if I'd felt weird without one.' He catches Gabriel's gaze, needing him to understand. 'He saw straight into me, Gabe. I don't know how else to put it. I know it's a little thing, but it's never occurred to anyone else to ask me that before, and it matters, you know? Everyone else always wants to hear about whether you guys are identical, if you act the same, if I have any funny stories. Dean just wanted to know about me.'

'He does inspire the giving of confidences,' says Gabriel, oddly quiet.

Cas blinks. 'You told him something?' And then, almost wonderingly, 'You told him something.'

Gabriel is poised to answer when his phone rings again. This time, he's the one who grins at the reprieve, holding up a silencing finger as he answers.

'Gary! What can I help you with?' He spoons the last of his cake into his mouth, chewing as he listens. A furrow appears between his eyebrows. 'Didn't Meg send it through? No? Then why not just – she's not? Still? Well, obviously I'm not in the office, but if you – yeah, Cooper should have access, and if he doesn't, try with Emma on fourth – all right. Sorry for the bother.'

He hangs up, frowning at his phone.

'What's up?' Cas asks.

'My secretary isn't at her desk.'

'Scandalous.'

'Exactly. Well, not exactly. Just odd.'

'She doesn't take breaks?'

'Not habitually, no. She's almost frighteningly efficient, and she was fine when we left.' He puts his phone away, more slowly than before. 'I'm sure it's nothing.'

'I'm sure you're –' A new ring interrupts them, this time from Cas's own phone. It's a lyricless version of Madonna's _Beautiful Stranger,_ loud in the sudden silence. '– right,' Cas finishes, puzzled. 'Isn't that what you programmed in for unknown numbers?'

'Answer it and find out.'

Cas does so, squinting at the screen. Sure enough, there's no caller ID: just an unfamiliar number. He answers tentatively. 'Hello? Who is this?'

'Castiel? This is Charlie, from the library?'

'Charlie!' says Cas, surprised. 'Not that it's not nice to speak to you, but how did you get this number?'

'From Dean's phone, when I called you to come get him?' Her inflection makes everything sound like a question. 'Maths is kinda my thing, so I tend to remember numbers. Anyway, um, is he with you? He doesn't need to have pants on or anything; I just need to ask him about his hours this week. I already tried the garage, but he's not there, and his phone isn't working for some reason.'

'His phone's not working?' says Cas. 'Are you sure? He checked it was charged this morning, and I know he's got it on him.'

'So he's not with you?'

Anxiety spears through him. 'No, he isn't. I mean, he was, but he went home, and I said I'd call him if I was late, so he should have his phone on. Have you left a voicemail?'

'I would if I could,' says Charlie, 'but I just keep getting a message saying the number is not in service. Maybe he dropped it or something?'

'Maybe,' says Cas. His mouth feels dry. 'Charlie, I need to, uh, I need to go check something out, but I'll tell him to give you a call, OK?'

'OK, sure thing! Thanks, Castiel.'

She hangs up, and Cas instantly calls Dean's number. Sure enough, there's no dialtone, no voicemail: just a series of machine tones and a pre-recorded voice saying the number he has dialled is unavailable, and suddenly Cas's thoughts are full of visions of Dean alone, Dean triggered and hurting, Dean thinking he was fine right up until he wasn't, Dean doing something stupid because he's too self-punishing to call for help, to the point of making sure no one can call him –

'Gabe,' says Cas, trying to keep the panic from his voice, 'I need you to drive me to Dean's house. Now.'

 


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings for this chapter in the endnotes.

 'Now that we're alone,' says Alistair, smiling as Dean's simless phone sinks to the bottom of the bath, 'I think it's time we talked, don't you?'

Dean sits on the edge of the tub, arms wrapped around his torso, trying to look anywhere other than at Alistair and his gun, trying not to give him the satisfaction of seeing him fall apart and numb with the effort it takes. 'If you're going to kill me,' he says, proud of how steady he sounds, 'just do it already.'

Alistair sighs like a disappointed headmaster. His voice is like a fine-toothed saw, a raspy purr that could cut through bone. 'Oh, Dean. Sweet boy, you were never too bright, but if I'd ever imagined you were quite this stupid, I'd never have let you go. Or did you honestly think you could walk into Gabriel Novak's office, spill my secrets like seed on his desk and not reap what you'd sown? You need to recant, and quickly.'

'Or what?' Dean spits, fingernails digging into his arms to keep from screaming. 'You'll kill me? Rape me?' He has to force the word out. 'Again?'

Alistair's smile twitches. 'Oh, don't pout. I made sure you enjoyed yourself. Mostly.'

'You're sick, you know that?'

'Everyone's sick, sweet boy. It's the human condition. I might be sicker than some, but I know what I am, which makes me far less sick than others.' He leans forward, tapping the gun barrel lightly against Dean's cheek. He flinches, and Alistair laughs, refocussing the weapon on his head. 'And to answer your question, I wasn't planning on killing you, or raping you. Plans can change, of course –' and Dean nearly vomits at that, '– but given my druthers, I'll leave you whole and unharmed. And do you know why?'

'Why?' Dean whispers. He's furious, thin tears wetting his cheeks, but if Alistair sees them, he gives no sign.

'Because, sweet boy, I plan for you to see reason. And the reason, happily, is easy to see. Don't testify. Go to Gabriel Novak and recant it all. Say you lied. It's not like you've never lied before, is it, Dean? Because I have to tell you, juries and judges alike tend to frown on star witnesses with a history of perjuring themselves.'

Dean stares at him, ugliness churning his stomach. 'What do you mean, perjury?'

'Oh, don't be coy.' Alistair drops to his haunches, still smiling. 'The inquest into the death of Aaron Bass. You lied, sweet boy. You perjured yourself, and while the statute of limitations has sadly expired on that particular crime, the fact that it _is_ a crime – that there is, as a lawyer might say, an established precedent for your lying in court about your relationships with men – will certainly be relevant. As, indeed, is the fact that you're fucking the prosecutor's brother.' He tilts his head, curious. 'Or is he fucking you?'

Dean can barely breathe. _Aaron. He knows about Aaron._ 'How do you –?'

'Oh, Dean. Please. Give me a little credit. I do my homework. And besides, you talk in your sleep.' He looks at him askance. 'I don't want to cause you any embarrassment, but if you get up in court and slander my good name, it'll all come out. That poor boy's parents will finally know what you did to their son, and you will answer every question that's put to you about Aaron Bass, about Castiel Novak, about your compulsive need to seek emotional validation through lying and casual sex –'

'You can't. You can't prove it, you can't prove any of it –'

'Sweet boy. Of course I can.' Alistair is a winter wolf, lean and sharp as splinters, eyes digging into Dean like nails, and when he speaks again, his bonesaw voice is unyielding. 'You think I never filmed you, Dean? All that bare flesh, pliant and begging and laid out cold while they took their turns, you think I didn't want to watch? I have all the proof the press will ever need.'

The words sink into him like hooks, and for a moment, he loses control of his body, sliding down the edge of the bath, ass hitting the tiles with a thump he doesn't feel. Even Gabriel says the trial will be a circus, and a video like that – a video of him and god knows who else, or how many – everyone will see it, everyone will know, even if they believe him they'll still have seen, his brother and Bobby and Charlie, they'll all see what's been done to him, they'll see it on him like dirt, he'll never be able to take it back, and Cas –

_Cas._

There's strength in the name, and hope. Cas won't treat him differently, because he already knows; he's seen everything Dean is, and hasn't looked away. _And he's coming. He's coming here, soon, he'll find me, he'll find Alistair, I just have to stall –_

'No,' Dean says, sharply. He tightens his grip on his arms, more frightened than he's ever been in his life, but Alistair doesn't need a gun to kill him, not if he can make Dean turn his thoughts on himself, and if he's going to get through this – if he's going to last until Cas gets here – he has to try and fight back, or part of him will be stuck in this awful, torturous moment forever.

Alistair raises an eyebrow. 'No?'

'No,' Dean says again, voice shaking. 'I'm not going to let you scare me. I don't believe you, Alistair. Not about the video. Maybe you took one once, but you couldn't leak it, not without risking yourself; not when the people in it could be traced to you, or the room, or anything else. And I know more of what you are than just what you do in bed. Much more.' He can feel his own fingernails drawing blood, he's holding himself that tightly, but it's worth it for the flash of shock on Alistair's face, brief but unmistakeable.

Alistair shakes his head and chuckles, _tsk_ ing gently. 'Dean Winchester. No one ever taught you the difference between courage and martyrdom, did they? Or if they tried, the lesson didn't stick.'

'What are you going to do, Alistair?' he pants. 'Kill me? Shoot me just when I've agreed to testify against you? You don't think that'll look a bit suspicious?'

'Of course it would,' says Alistair. 'I said I had no plans to kill you, and I meant it.' He hesitates, considering Dean with an almost abstract fondness. 'You're really going to do it, aren't you? Even to the point of self-destruction.'

Dean swallows, forces himself to meet Alistair's gaze. 'I really am, you piece of shit.'

Alistair sighs. 'I could threaten to kill your lover. Do to him what I did to you. And I don't suppose you'd be unmoved –' which is a fucking understatement; Dean's entire body goes rigid at the thought, cold sweat prickling his skin as _god no not Cas please don't hurt him_ judders in his blood'– but really, he's Gabriel's brother, you've known him a week, and even if I followed through, it'd be conspicuous. Messy. And I don't like messy. Which is why,' he says, reaching into his pocket, 'I'm going to do this instead.'

Quick as a cobra, Alistair jabs a syringe into the big vein on Dean's left foot, depressing the contents before Dean can think to kick him away. He gapes at Alistair, pulse thundering in his ears.

'What the fuck was that?' he gasps. He tries to stagger upright, grabbing for the edge of the bench, but he's suddenly dizzy, head spinning as he sits back on the edge of the tub, shaking from more than just fear.

'Ethanol,' says Alistair, calmly putting the syringe back in his pocket. 'You're about to feel very, very drunk. Suicidally so, in fact.'

'What?'

'I'm not going to kill you, sweet boy.' Kneeling between Dean's legs, Alistair puts his gun aside and spiders his leather-gloved fingers up Dean's thighs. 'You're going to kill yourself.'

And before Dean can respond to that, Alistair grabs his boxers and _yanks_. The sudden movement sends Dean toppling backwards, head crashing into the wall tiles as he falls, sideways and down and fully naked, into the waiting bath. The water closes over his head, and he sees stars overlaying the porcelain, choking as he flounders. Somehow, he thrashes his way upright, but he feels like a falldown drunk, vision blurred and head pounding, and he's so busy trying to breathe through fear and half-swallowed water that he doesn't understand what Alistair's doing until he looks at his hands and finds a boxcutter in one of them.

'Now, remember,' Alistair says, smiling as he guides Dean's grip on the blade towards the opposite wrist, 'it's down the block, not across the street.'

'No,' Dean says, trying to pull away, 'Jesus, no, Alistair, please, _please_ –'

The plea chokes out into pained gasps, bright blood in the water as the knife cuts down, deep and sure, the water warm around him and the lights too bright, his pulse his burning and he still can't breathe – his body is heavy, so heavy, and he tries to fight it, tries to tug his hands away as Alistair moves the knife to his other palm, squeezing his spasming fingers around the handle.

The second cut is shorter, shallower, but no less effective. Alistair pulls his hand away, and the knife drops into the water beside him, sinking like a stone.

'I wouldn't advise moving,' says Alistair, when Dean tries and fails to sit up again, splashing back when his hands won't take his weight. The room is so bright, and Dean's vision so blurry, it almost looks like Alistair's got a halo, and he shuts his eyes against the blasphemy of it, against the sight of red-pink staining the water. 'The faster your heart beats, the quicker the ethanol spreads through your system, and the quicker you bleed out. Just lie back, sweet boy. Take your time.

'There's no one coming for you.'

 _There is_ , Dean wants to say, _Cas is_ , but he can't form the words, and everything hurts and nothing does, and Alistair's just kneeling there, watching him die, and some hateful, treacherous part of himself thinks, _You deserve it, anyway._

He starts crying, then – or maybe he never stopped, he doesn't know – but he can feel the tears, cold salt where the rest of him is hot, too hot, and maybe it's just easier to slip away, after all. At least that way, he won't be letting anyone down.

'I'm sorry,' Dean whispers, to everyone and no one. 'God, I'm so sorry.' _I'm not brave enough for this._

'I forgive you,' Alistair murmurs. His voice sounds far away, and oddly soft. 'Let go, sweet boy. Just let it all go.'

He does. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings: emotional abuse, forced suicide, mentions of rape.


	18. Chapter 18

By the time Gabriel pulls up in front of Dean's house, Cas is white-knuckled and sweating.

'I'm sure he's fine –' Gabe starts, the same uncertainty in his voice that's been there since they left Black Cherry, but Castiel isn't listening; he almost trips as he struggles to get free of the car, and when he runs up the path to the door, Gabe breaks off, swearing, and follows him.

'Dean?' Cas turns the handle – it's unlocked – and barges into the hall. The house smells of cooking, and when he gets to the kitchen, he has just enough time to take in the newly-cleaned table and simmering food before he freezes, arrested by the sight of Alistair Sharp emerging from the bathroom.

' _Shit!_ ' Gabe hisses.

Then everything happens at once.

Alistair raises his gun as Cas bulls forward, rage and adrenaline making him brave. The rapist gets one shot off before Cas tackles him to the floor, wild with fury as he grabs Alistair's gunhand and wrestles for the weapon. There's another shot and Alistair bucks under him; Cas smashes his knuckles against the wood, and the gun goes spinning away.

'You can't –' Alistair snarls, struggling to go after it, but Castiel won't let him. Grabbing Alistair's head by the ears, he slams it down on the floor, over and over, twisting his grip as the other man starts to convulse. There's an awful, wet sound, followed by a crack, but Cas keeps going, a noise in his throat that's somewhere between a roar and a sob.

'Castiel!' Gabe yells. 'Cassie, stop it! He's gone! Cassie! You need to find Dean!' He coughs, voice hoarse. 'Jesus _fuck_ , I'm calling a fucking ambulance.'

 _Dean._ Dropping Alistair, Cas scrambles to his feet, surging into the bathroom, terrified of what he'll find, of being too late –

He rounds the corner and almost falls. The bath is full of blood, too much blood, obscenely dark against Dean's skin, pale and freckled, and _oh, god, no no no no_ –

' _Dean!_ '

An ugly noise rips free of his throat as he hauls Dean out of the bath. Muscles burning in protest, Cas hefts the deadweight ( _no not dead not dead please god not like this not dead_ ) and somehow Dean tumbles into his lap and lies there, still and heavy and warm. Grabbing the towels from the rack, Cas wraps them around Dean's wrists as tightly as he can, which isn't very, and oh, god, he doesn't even know if that's the right thing to do, but he has to do _something_.

'Gabriel!' Cas shouts. 'Gabe, please, I need you, I need an ambulance, I need –' He breaks off, struggling to breathe; he rests Dean's head on his thighs, willing him to be OK, hands fluttering over his skin. He tries to check for a pulse at his neck, but he's shaking so badly, he can't tell if he's really feeling one.

'Gabe!' he yells again. 'Gabriel, _please_!'

'Ambulance is coming,' comes the croaky response. 'Cops, too. Is he alive?'

Dean's eyelids twitch, and Castiel moans with relief.

'I'll take that as a yes, then?' More coughing, and through the fugue of grief and fear, Cas feels the hairs on his neck stand up.

His brother wasn't coughing in the car.

'Gabe?' he says, voice shaking. 'Come in here?'

'Would if I could, little bro.' There's a hitch in his breathing, ragged and strange. 'I, uh. I think I've been shot.'

Castiel squeezes his eyes shut, trying to unhear the words. _Oh, no. No. No._ His fingers dig into Dean's shoulders, trying to find a grip; he needs to move him, needs to pull him out to the kitchen where Gabriel is, has to keep them both safe, has to watch them –

'I'm coming,' Cas says, fighting tears. 'Gabe, hang on, I'm coming, I just have to move him –'

'Cassie, don't, there's no point –'

' _I'm not leaving you alone!_ '

'I'm not alone,' says Gabriel, faintly. 'Cassie, you're right here. I can hear you just fine. It's all fine, we'll be fine, I just...'

'Gabriel? _Gabriel!_ '

No answer.

Gasping now, Cas hooks his hands under Dean's armpits, trying to tug him backwards but slipping in water and blood, the tiles too slick for purchase. His left arm burns like it's on fire, and it's too much, all of it: he starts screaming, a raw, hopeless noise that goes on and on and doesn't stop, even when he hears sirens.

Footsteps in the hall, and Cas gets finally his voice under control for long enough to yell, 'In here! Help me!'

'What the fuck –?'

'Jesus, is that Alistair Sharp?'

'Get the other gurney, quick!'

'Help me,' Cas echoes, numb as the paramedics enter, 'help them, god, please, you have to save them, you have to –'

'Easy. Easy.' Someone puts a hand on his shoulder, and a new voice asks, 'What the hell happened here?'

Cas gulps, hands twitching. 'Alistair, it was Alistair, he did this to Dean, he shot Gabe, he –' Dean is lifted away from him then, and Cas cries out, trying to stand but finding himself held firmly in place.

'Sir, you need to stay seated. You're bleeding.'

Castiel shakes his head. 'It's not my blood, it's his, I'm fine, I need to go with them, I need –'

The person holding his shoulder crouches before him. She's calm and clever-looking, her kinky hair pulled back in a tail. 'What's your name, sir? Can you tell me that?'

'Castiel.' He gulps, gaze following Dean as he's whisked away on a gurney. 'Castiel Novak. That man, that's Dean, Dean Winchester, he's mine, and the man in the hall, the one who's been shot, is Gabriel, my brother.'

'All right. Good. That's good to know.'

'Is he alive?' Cas grabs at her uniform. 'Gabriel, is he alive?'

'He's alive,' says the paramedic. She smiles at him, but there's something tense about it, and before he can ask anything else, she changes the topic. 'Castiel. That's unusual. You get called Cassie at all?'

'By my brothers, yeah.'

'Well, I'm a Cassie, too.' She slides her hand down his arm, pushing the sleeve of his t-shirt up. 'And I have to say, one Cassie to another, this isn't all your blood. You've been grazed by a bullet. See?'

'I have?'

'You have. But it's all right, it's only superficial. We can patch it right up.' And she starts to do just that, hands working deftly with gauze and tape.

Cas watches her in a daze. He feels impossibly weak, like his soul is slowly seeping out of his body, and when a police officer hunkers down next to him, her grey eyes grave, he looks at the her with honest confusion.

'Castiel, is it?' the officer asks. She has a deep, deceptively friendly voice. 'I'm Detective Barnes, and I need to ask you some questions.'

Somehow, Castiel nods. 'OK.'

'Did you kill Alistair Sharp?'

The world goes away for a minute. He's dimly aware of Cassie and Detective Barnes saying his name, of other paramedics and police officers moving around and over him like ants on a corpse, but he can't seem to respond to any of them. He stares at his hands, which lie in his lap, twitching faintly. They're red with blood, and he'd thought it was all Dean's, but he suddenly remembers the crack of Alistair's head on the floor, Gabriel yelling at him to stop, and he's almost sick on the spot.

'Oh, god.' He stares at the detective, going cold all over. 'He's dead?'

'He's dead, Mr Novak. Did you kill him?'

'I... I didn't mean to, I just – we came to find Dean, me and Gabriel, because his phone wasn't working and I was worried, I came running in and then Alistair was coming out of the bathroom, he shot at us and I just, I tackled him, I was trying to get the gun and it went off again, and he's, god, he's a rapist, you don't understand, he raped Dean, he abused him, he was going to testify against him for the DA's office and he shot at me, he was _in Dean's house_ and he tried to get the gun back and I didn't have any time, I had to make him stop, so I just, I _grabbed_ him and I – I hit – I –'

'He's in shock,' says Cassie. 'You can question him later.'

'He just confessed to murder!'

'He just confessed to acting in self-defence,' Cassie counters, 'and he's in no fit state to be denied medical treatment. Jesus, just _look_ at him, would you?'

'Please.' Cas reaches out, bloody hand ghosting over the detective's knee. Her eyes go wide, and he flinches back, shivering. 'Please, just take me with them, I just need to know they're all right, I need to be with them, you can handcuff me, I won't – I'm not going to run, I just need to go with them, you understand?'

'Give me a reason,' Detective Barnes says. 'One good reason to believe you. Because right now, I gotta say, I've got a houseful of dead or dying people and exactly one suspect, so you'll have to excuse my scepticism.'

'Don't take my word,' says Cas. He's screaming inside, desperate to follow Dean and Gabe, but he's got just enough of a grip on himself to know that he needs to do this properly. 'Let me make a call. One call. I'll put it on speaker, you can hear everything, I promise. One call, and then you can do what you want.'

The detective stares at him, then nods. 'One call,' she says, a hand on her gun as Cas slowly reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone. Breathing hard, he tilts the screen to show her what he's doing, scrolling through his contacts to the number for the DA's office, which he's only ever called a handful of times. If Pamela is surprised, she doesn't show it, listening impassively as Castiel dials.

A woman answers. 'This is Victor Henriksen's office, Naomi speaking.'

Cas gulps, struggling to keep his voice even. 'Naomi, this is Castiel Novak, Gabriel's brother. I need to speak to Victor right now. It's an emergency.'

'Can I ask what it's with regard to?' Naomi says, prim as ever.

'Alistair Sharp just shot Gabriel,' he says, blankly. 'And I killed Alistair Sharp.'

A shocked intake of breath. 'Transferring you now,' she says, followed by a string of beeps as she puts the call through. Castiel grits his teeth; his arm is really starting to hurt, and he's having to suppress a manic urge to laugh, because it's that or cry.

After an eternity of seconds, Victor's voice comes on the line. 'Castiel, please tell me this is a joke.'

'I wish it was,' he says. 'You're on speaker with Detective Barnes, by the way,' and before either official can protest this state of affairs, Cas proceeds to tell the District Attorney exactly what happened, and why. His voice is starting to falter, rasping in his own ears, and when he finally falls silent, it doesn't feel like he's ever going to be able to talk again.

Fortunately, Victor speaks for him. 'Detective Barnes?'

She straightens. 'Yes, sir?'

'Here's what's going to happen. You're going to take Mr Novak to the hospital. Handcuff him if you absolutely have to, but there will be no formal arrest or charges laid until I get there to sort this out. I want a full forensic analysis of the scene, I want a protective detail on Gabriel Novak and Dean Winchester the second they're out of surgery, and before you ask, yes, I will be confirming all this with your superiors the second I get off the phone, because I will not see this case clusterfucked all to hell by such a simple thing as the death of Alistair Sharp. Am I understood?'

'Understood, sir,' says Detective Barnes.

'As for you, Mr Novak – keep your goddamn mouth shut and wait for your lawyer to arrive.'

Cas feels faint. 'I don't have a lawyer.'

'You do now,' says Victor Henriksen, and hangs up.

Castiel pockets the phone before it can slip from his fingers. He doesn't feel quite in his body, like he's climbed so high up a mountain that the oxygen's gone thin. Without meaning to, he slumps over, resting his weight on his knuckles, and says, his voice sounding distant in his own ears, 'I think I would like an ambulance now, please.'

He doesn't so much black out then as come to a halt, his mental gears jammed in a state of walking catatonia. He's terrified for Dean and Gabriel, terrified for himself, horrified and exultant and guilty all at once for having killed Alistair, and between all that and the shock and pain and emotional trauma inherent in being left helpless while the two people you love most in the world bleed out in separate rooms, he goes away inside himself and doesn't come back again until they're at the hospital; until the detective walks him into a small, square room containing a uniformed police officer, an attending nurse, two empty chairs, a bed, and Dean Winchester.

Something in Castiel breaks. He staggers away from his keepers, collapsing into the bedside chair. Dean is pale, but breathing; there's a drip in the crook of each of his elbows and gauze pads taped to his wrists. Not quite daring to touch him, Cas turns to the nurse and blurts out, 'Is he going to be OK?'

She considers him warily, glancing at Detective Barnes for permission before answering. 'He should be, yes. He lost a lot of blood, but we're giving him a transfusion, morphine for his wrists, and he's on IV fluids and glucose for the ethanol poisoning.'

Cas blanches. 'Ethanol poisoning? How –?'

This time, it's Detective Barnes who answers. 'He was injected with it.' She comes to stand beside Cas, her expression angry. 'Not a fatal dose, but more than enough to incapacitate him, keep him docile while his wrists were slit. We found the empty syringe in Alistair's pocket while we were bringing you out, called ahead to let the hospital know.' She glances at the nurse. 'Did you find the injection point, out of interest?'

The nurse looks disgusted. 'On his foot,' she says. 'Not somewhere you typically look for needlemarks. Or at all, for that matter.'

'Jesus,' Barnes mutters.

Cas is shaking hard. 'And Gabriel?' he asks, barely able to get the question out.

'Your brother's in surgery,' the nurse says, her expression softening. 'The bullet nicked his left lung, but barring complications, he should do fine.'

'Complications.' Cas grips the edge of the bed, trying to keep from rocking. 'Are they likely?'

'They're always possible, but we have no reason to anticipate them here, no.'

Cas nods. He stares at his hands, which someone has wiped clean of blood – or tried to, anyway; it's still crusted around his fingernails, red flecks on his wrist and knuckles – and forces himself to ask a final question.

'Am I going to jail?'

Detective Barnes doesn't so much as smile as frown a little less. 'On the basis of the evidence, I doubt it. You acted in self-defence, in the full and reasonable belief that Mr Sharp was in the process of committing a serious crime, and unless either your brother or Mr Winchester gives testimony to the contrary, it seems pretty clear to me that that's actually what he was doing, which puts you well within the grounds of justifiable homicide. Speaking purely off the record, off course, and making no promises.'

'Of course,' Cas echoes. He looks at Dean again, wanting desperately to touch him, kiss him, but unable to handle the prospect of his non-responsiveness. 'How long until he wakes up?'

'It could be any time now,' says the nurse. 'The morphine isn't enough to keep him out; he's just resting.'

'Oh,' says Cas. He turns to the detective. 'Can I – am I allowed to make some calls? I, I need to let people know that he's here, that Gabriel's here.' _That I'm here,_ he almost adds, but doesn't.

'I think we can manage that,' she says, and flicks her gaze to the nurse. 'Is that all right? A cell phone won't upset the equipment or anything?'

The nurse shakes her head. 'Not in here, no.'

Detective Barnes puts a hand on his shoulder. 'If I leave you here with –' she squints at the nurse's nametag, '– Layla and Officer Fitzgerald, are you going to do anything stupid?'

Cas searches for a witty reply – or any reply, really – but he's too tired: all he can do is shake his head. Detective Barnes gives his shoulder a parting squeeze and exits, leaving Cas to pull out his phone and try to decide who to call.

He rings Anna first, because after Gabriel, she's the sibling he's closest to, and tells her Gabe's been shot: nothing else. She's appropriately distressed and promises both to fly in and to let Michael know, a more circuitous process than simply phoning, as he's currently on duty.

'What about Luke?' she says, suddenly. 'Have you told him?'

Castiel winces, pulse ticking up as he looks at Dean. 'Luke is... complicated.'

'So complicated he can't come to the hospital?' she says, incredulous.

'Complicated like he might be arrested if he does,' says Cas. 'And even if he doesn't, the police and the DA are still going to want to speak to him. Please don't ask me to explain,' he says, cutting off her flurry of questions. 'Not yet, anyway. I... I'm not coping very well, Anna. I don't think I can bear to call our parents; I'll only shout at them, or cry, and I can't afford to do either of those things just now. In fact, I'd appreciate you leaving them out of it altogether until Gabe's awake again.'

Her incredulity turns to anger. 'And what if he dies, Cassie? What do I tell them then?'

Cas makes a strangled noise. 'Anna, please, I can't – I can't deal with this right now, I just can't. There's a lot I'm not telling you, and I'm sorry, but I just – please. Please, help me with this.'

A moment of agonising silence. Then: 'OK,' she says, and he can hear the stress in her voice. 'God, Cassie, are you all right?'

An awful smile cracks his face. 'Not even a little bit,' he says, and hangs up.

Calling Charlie, by contrast, is almost easy. She picks up on the second ring, breezy and cheerful until he cuts her off with, 'Dean's in hospital.'

'Holy shitting fuck!' says Charlie. 'Is he all right?'

'I don't know. I think so. Yes. He hasn't woken up yet.' Cas hides his face in his free hand. 'I need to let his family know, but I don't have any numbers. Do you have one for the garage, for his – for Bobby?'

'Shit. Yeah. Yeah, I do. Hang on. Which hospital are you at?'

Cas tells her, and in return, Charlie gives him the number for Singer Auto. 'I'll come by as soon as I can,' she says. 'Do you need me to bring you anything?'

'No. But thanks for the offer.'

'Well, text me if you change your mind. I'll see you, Cas.'

He hangs up, and the nurse – Layla – shoots him a sympathetic look as she finishes whatever-it-was she was doing in the first place and leaves. That leaves Officer Fitzgerald, a skinny-looking kid whose uniform barely fits him, and who reacts to Cas's bleary stare by wriggling his fingers in a tacit wave.

Swallowing nausea, Cas calls Bobby Singer. He's not expecting the man himself to pick up – he doesn't exactly come across as the kind of guy who sits around answering phones – but even after just one meeting, his gruff non-salutation of, 'Yeah, what?' is unmistakeable.

Cas's mouth goes dry. 'Bobby, um. This is, ah, this is Castiel, I'm Dean's – you met me, ah, yesterday –' and what does that even mean, _yesterday_ ; the entire world has changed, more time ought to have passed than that, '– and I – oh, god – I didn't know who else to call, but he's in hospital, he's going to wake up soon but someone tried to kill him and I –'

'Someone _what_?' Bobby growls. 'Was it Kubrick?'

'No, not him, it was someone else, but he's gone now, it's fine, he'll be fine – Dean, I mean, Dean's going to be fine as soon as he wakes up – but I don't, I don't have a number for Sam, and even if I did, he doesn't know who I am, Dean hasn't told him yet –'

'Calm down, son. I'll call Sam, but it might help if I can give him your cell, just in case he wants to talk to you himself.'

'Of course,' says Cas, dutifully reciting his number and the hospital address.

'Thanks,' says Bobby. 'Now, Castiel, you mind tellin' me what the hell this is all about?'

A sob catches in his throat. 'It's – it's complicated.'

'Simplify it, then.'

'I'm not sure I can.'

'Boy, you gotta give me somethin' to go on, here.'

'One of his exes,' Cas says at last. 'The guy broke in, drugged him, slit his wrists. Tried to make it look like a suicide. I got there in time, but he was still – I had to –'

'You're sure it was an ex?' says Bobby, a worried edge in his voice. 'I don't mean to be harsh, but Dean's – well, he's had his troubles, and after that bullshit Kubrick pulled, I can understand how he might –'

'He didn't try to kill himself.' Cas grits out the words like penance.

'You know that for sure? Because it sounds like –'

' _I fucking know how it sounds_ ,' Cas screams, ' _and I fucking well know what happened_ , _Bobby, because the guy was still in the house and he shot at me and shot my brother and I fucking_ killed _him, OK_?' He's breathing so hard he can barely speak, and Bobby's shocked silence burns his ear like poison.

Then, tentatively, Bobby says, 'Jesus, Castiel. Are you all right?'

Cas gives a jagged laugh. 'My brother's been shot in the lung, Dean hasn't woken up yet, and I killed someone. Does that sound all right to you? I'm sorry, I just... I can't do this, I can't keep calling people like any of it makes sense, I can't, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry –' he hangs up, dropping the phone with a clatter, and bows his head on the edge of the bed and sobs like he hasn't done in years, like he's seven years old again and spending his first night in a psychiatric ward.

Something soft brushes against his ear – a hand, he realises, Dean's hand, the fingertips outstretched. Cas jerks his head up, wiping his eyes on the back of his wrist, and watches, heart in mouth, as those green eyes blink slowly open.

'Dean?' he whispers.

'Hey, Cas,' Dean croaks. He tries to lift first one arm, then the other, wincing at the unexpected tug of the cannulas. '– the hell?' he mumbles, raising his head. He blinks again, squinting like his eyes aren't quite in focus, and asks, 'Hospital?'

'Hospital,' Cas confirms. He's shaking again, and when he reaches for Dean's hand, they both clutch at each other, squeezing tight as their fingers tangle.

'Alistair,' Dean blurts suddenly, his face going pale. 'Cas, I didn't – I swear, it wasn't me, I didn't want to die –'

'I know, and he's gone now. He's gone, I promise. You're safe.' He shuts his eyes, tears streaking down his cheeks. 'I killed him, Dean. He shot Gabe, and I killed him, and I don't – I didn't know I could do something like that, I didn't mean to, but I'm not sorry, and maybe that makes me a monster –'

Dean's grip on him tightens. 'You killed him? Killed Alistair?' And then, more softly, when Cas doesn't answer, 'Cas. Hey. Look at me.'

He does, and in that moment, he's utterly terrified, though he couldn't even begin to express what of.

'You're not a monster,' Dean says, fiercely. 'OK, Cas? Alistair was evil, he was a fucking sadist, and you saved me. That's it. That's all that matters.'

Cas makes a noise that's closer to a hiccup than anything else. He drags his chair closer to the head of the bed and bends down, pressing his forehead to their joined hands, and after a moment, he feels Dean's other hand resting on his hair.

'Is Gabe all right?' Dean asks, quietly. 'You said he was shot.'

'He's in surgery. They said he'll be fine if there aren't any complications, but I don't know what that means.'

'He'll be fine,' Dean says. He strokes Cas's hair, fingertips brushing lightly against his scalp, and just then, it's the most comforting thing in the world. 'I mean, he's a lawyer, right? Lawyers are indestructible. Known fact. They only die if you stake 'em or cut their heads off.'

Impossibly, despite everything, Cas laughs. 'That's vampires, love. Not lawyers.'

'Eh, same difference.' His hand stills. 'Love?'

'What?'

'You just called me love.'

Cas freezes. 'Did I?'

'You did,' says Dean. He sounds curiously unbothered, and after a moment, he resumes stroking. 'Am I on painkillers?'

'Morphine, I think. For your wrists.'

'That's nice. I like morphine.'

'Me, too.' Cas doesn't lift his head, but he turns to one side, looking up the sheets at him.

'Dean?'

'Mm?'

'I, ah. I called Bobby. And Charlie, because I needed to get Bobby's number, and Bobby said he'd call Sam. I told him an ex hurt you, I didn't say anything about who or why,' he adds, quickly, 'but I, ah. I hope that was the right thing to do.'

'You did fine, Cas.' He makes a pained noise. 'God, Sammy's going to kill me.'

'For what?'

'For not coming out to him myself.' He laughs, shakily. 'Funny thing about nearly dying, it kinda resets your priorities. I was scared to tell him before, but I'm not now. I just want him here.' He thumbs a gentle circle on the back of Cas's hand. 'I want him to meet you.'

'I want to meet him, too,' says Cas, voice suddenly hoarse. 'I... I want a lot of things.'

'Like legal representation, perhaps?' says a voice from the door.

Cas jumps, angry and startled by the sudden arrival of Victor Henriksen. The DA stands in the doorway, sharp gaze lighting on seemingly everything else in the room before finally settling on Dean.

'Mr Winchester,' he says, formally. 'I'm glad to see you're awake.'

'Yeah, me too,' says Dean, looking from Victor to Cas and back again. 'Sorry, you are?'

'Right now,' says Victor, 'I'm the man tasked with keeping Mr Novak out of jail, and in that capacity –' he shoots Cas a meaningful look, '– I need to borrow him. Privately.'

Heart in mouth, Cas says, 'Is there a problem?'

'Hopefully not. I'm trying to head it off.' Victor's expression softens. 'Any word on Gabriel?'

'Not yet.'

'Damn.' And then, sighing, 'Christ almighty, but the press are going to go apeshit over this one.' He looks across to to the cop, Fitzgerald, who straightens noticeably under the scrutiny, and says, 'Have you taken Mr Winchester's statement yet, officer?'

'Nossir,' says Fitzgerald, the single word betraying an accent gawky enough to match his frame. 'But I'll do it now.'

'A wise idea,' says Victor, dryly, and turns back to Cas. 'There's an office down the way we can use. We won't be long –' he breaks off, frowning at Cas's sore arm. 'Have you been given something for that?'

Cas blinks. 'What? Oh. No. Maybe. I don't know.' He looks away, obscurely embarrassed. 'I mean, they might've done in the ambulance, but I wasn't exactly functional at that point. I don't remember.'

'Cas,' Dean chides, a note of worry in his voice, 'you're hurt?'

'Not very. The bullet only grazed me.'

'Bullet?' Dean sits up sharply, IV drips be damned, letting go of Cas's hand in favour of sliding his palm up the injured arm. 'That fucking _bastard,'_ he hisses, tracing the outline of the gauze pad.

Cas looks away. 'Dean, it's nothing, really. You and Gabriel were far more badly hurt –'

'Shut up,' Dean says, and kisses him. The angle and the IVs make it awkward, but Cas still moans against him, hands coming up to cradle his face, and just for a moment, it doesn't matter that Victor's waiting, that Gabriel's still in surgery: Dean is still alive, still his, and it's enough, more than enough, to get him through whatever happens next.

 


	19. Chapter 19

Dean gives his statement in between sips of water, intravenous fluids only doing so much to quench his thirst. Part of him doesn't understand how he's able to talk about what Alistair did so calmly – but then, he figures, Alistair's dead, which helps, as does the fact that Officer Fitzgerald is about as intimidating as a wet puppy. He's the kind of guy Bobby's wife, Ellen, would likely describe as a tall drink of water, all skinny edges and goofy wrists, but despite his looks, he treats Dean's testimony with the seriousness it deserves, only interrupting to ask quiet, relevant questions.

'And that's it,' Dean finishes, 'until I woke up here.'

Office Fitzgerald nods, jotting down a final note in his pocketbook. 'Thank you,' he says, and flips the cover shut. 'That tracks with what we were told by Mr Novak.'

'Do you know when he'll be back?' Dean asks – which is stupid, of course he doesn't, he's been stuck in here the whole time Cas has been gone. 'I mean, can you guess or anything?'

'Sorry.' Fitzgerald gives an apologetic shrug.

Dean hesitates. 'Did Cas... did he really kill Alistair?'

'He did.'

'How?'

'I'm not sure I should –'

' _How_ , dude?'

'Manually,' comes the blunt answer, courtesy of a female detective watching from the doorway. As she enters, Officer Fitzgerald steps hastily back to make room for her. 'He smashed his head on the floor.'

Dean tries to picture it, then realises he doesn't want to. 'Good,' he says instead, savagely.

'Good that he's dead, or good that your lover did it?'

'Jesus, what the hell is your problem?' Dean snaps, glaring at her, remembering all too vividly the hollow-eyed look on Cas's face, like he'd killed a part of himself along with Alistair. 'Good that he's dead, that's all, I never wanted Cas to even _see_ him, let alone –'

'Easy!' The detective throws up her hands, and it's only then that Dean realises he's halfway to pulling out an IV, he's that worked up. He lies back down again, dizzy from being upright, spots swimming in his vision. 'Easy,' she says again, more softly, and even though Dean wants to stay awake and yell at her some more, his body apparently has other ideas: his eyes slip shut, and he drifts back into unconsciousness.

When he next comes round, the detective is gone, and a nurse is changing the bags on his drip. He blinks up at her, groggy and sore, his wrists burning against their bandages. 'How long was I out?' he asks.

She looks down at him, surprised. 'About an hour, I think. How are you feeling?'

'Thirsty. Sore.' He winces. 'My wrists hurt.'

'I can give you some more morphine, if you'd like.'

'Yes, please.'

'All right. And your blood transfusion is finished, so you'll only need one IV.'

'Peachy.'

She gives him the morphine, takes out the blood drip and the cannula, attaches a new saline bag, then says, voice low, 'You have visitors, but the police won't let them in.'

'What?' He stares angrily at Officer Fitzgerald, 'Why the hell not?'

'Because they're not family,' he says, apologetically. 'Not blood family, I mean. I know it's stupid, but –'

'Listen,' Dean growls. 'Either you get them in here now, or I find a phone and start giving unsolicited tabloid interviews.'

Which should be a transparent bluff, given that he's effectively borrowing the threat from Alistair, and even that much of a similarity is enough to have him shuddering. But Officer Fitzgerald blanches like Dean's just waved a nuclear self-destruct code in his face, and gets straight on his radio to have someone let Detective Barnes know that Mr Winchester wants to see his visitors. An angry, staticky, back-and-forth follows, but common sense prevails when the nurse, Layla, spots Cas's abandoned phone on the floor and hands it to Dean, who waves it about like a prop until he gets his way.

Five minutes later, he's sitting up in bed – supported, this time, once Layla showed him how to work the remote that raises and lowers the top of the mattress – and trying to keep himself under control as Ellen, Bobby and Jo walk in.

'Dean, you idiot,' Jo says, and throws her arms around his neck, hugging tightly.

'Right back atcha,' he says, and there's a lump in his throat as Ellen reaches over her daughter's head and ruffles his hair, while Bobby stands back and says, with typical gruffness, 'Good to see you, boy.'

Jo pulls back, looking him over worriedly. 'How are you feeling?'

'Like hammered crap,' Dean admits. 'But I'm getting better.' And astonishingly, it's not a lie.

'Where's your fella?' Ellen asks, peering about. 'This Castiel saved your life, I should at least get to meet him.'

'He's with the DA,' says Dean, and something lurches inside him. 'God, he could get arrested for this, I should never have dragged him into it –'

'Now, none of that,' says Ellen, firmly. 'The way I've heard it, you didn't force that boy to do anything –'

'The DA?' Bobby interrupts.

Ellen flashes him one of her trademark Looks, but rather than back down, Bobby stands his ground and says, in a tone of aggrieved curiosity, 'I just don't understand why the District Attorney's takin' an interest in Dean, is all.'

Jo raises an eyebrow. 'Actually, that's a good point. Since when have you had friends in high places?'

'Please don't ask me that,' Dean says, quietly. He can't look at any of them, and even though he knows they'll find out the truth eventually – hell, he's the one who threatened the cops with tabloids to get them here in the first place – he still can't make himself say it out loud. 'I... it's complicated.'

'That's what Cas said on the phone,' Bobby grumps, and Dean surprises himself by snapping back, 'Well, it is, OK? Does any of this seem simple to you?'

Ellen smacks Bobby's arm, and he blushes above his beard. 'Sorry,' he mumbles – though whether to Dean or his wife, it's not clear – and promptly makes an inelegant but much-welcome bid for a change of topic. 'Uh, I spoke to Sam. He's gonna fly in tomorrow.'

'What did you tell him?' Dean asks, suddenly nervous for a different reason. The emotional whiplash is almost more dizzying than the blood loss was.

'That an ex of yours cut you up some,' says Bobby. If anything, his blush deepens. 'Now, I was light on details myself, so I didn't get to mentionin' gender. 'Sides, I figured you should explain about Castiel and the rest of it yourself.'

Jo looks shocked with a hint of scandalized. 'Oh my god, Bobby, did you seriously tell Sam that Cas and Dean were _just_ _friends_?'

Bobby shuffles his feet. 'Not exactly,' he hedges. And then, when Ellen shoots him his second Look in as many minutes, 'I just said Dean's new partner was called Cas, and gave Sam his number. Pronouns didn't enter into it.'

'Lying by omission,' says Ellen, shaking her head. 'Rufus is gonna disown you.'

Bobby snorts. 'Fat chance. I'm the closest thing to a wife he'll ever have.'

Dean groans. 'God, stop talking. I don't need to go picturing that.'

'If I can cope with it, so can you,' says Ellen.

Before Dean can reply, Cas suddenly lurches into the room, looking even more haggard than before.

'Dean?' he calls, knuckling his eyes. 'I'm –' He looks up, takes in sight of Bobby, Jo and Ellen, and flinches to a halt. 'Oh. Sorry. I can, um, I can come back later –'

'Cas. Don't.' He sounds utterly wrecked, and Dean holds out a hand to him, ignoring the tug of his IV. 'Please. C'mere.'

Hesitantly, Cas complies, shoulders hunching self-consciously when Jo and Ellen step aside to let him through. He hovers over the chair, clearly wanting to sit but seemingly uncertain of whether he should, and in that moment, he looks so lost, Dean aches for him. Stretching up as far as he can, he grabs the sleeve of Cas's shirt, which is really _his_ shirt, and tugs him down. Cas succumbs to gravity and exhaustion both, breath whumphing out of his lungs as grips the edge of the bed.

'I'm not going to jail,' he rasps, 'and Gabriel's out of surgery, he's in the ICU. I saw him, they said he'll be fine but he's just, he's there, he's asleep –' he's not quite crying, but his eyes are wet and fever-bright, '– and what I did, they're saying it was justifiable homicide –'

'Damn straight,' Bobby mutters, as Ellen gives a sharp, approving nod.

'– and you're here, I called everyone, I called, I did, and you're safe, and Gabe's safe, but it was his secretary, Meg, she was spying for Alistair, she told him where you were and she's been arrested, but I'm not going to jail –'

'It's OK,' Dean says softly, cupping his palm to Cas's face. The effect is instantaneous: Cas gulps into silence, the sound an almost-sob, and leans into his touch, eyes shuddering shut over quiet tears. 'You can stop now, baby. It's OK. It's all OK.' His own voice comes out choked, his heart so full, he can hardly bear it. He wants to pull Cas into his arms, but there's no way to do it, no space even if he had the strength, and so he strokes his thumb across Cas's cheek and guides him down instead, until his forehead is resting on Dean's shoulder. Cas burrows into him, and Dean moves in turn, hand coming up to cradle the back of Cas's head as he leans his cheek on his hair.

'I'm sorry I –' Cas starts, but Dean doesn't let him finish.

'Shh. Don't apologise. You're fine.' He twists, kissing his temple. 'You're perfect.'

Cas starts to shake. 'I don't feel perfect.'

'Doesn't matter. You are.'

'Dean, I –'

'Shh,' he says again, and when Cas turns to look at him, eyes wide and pleading, Dean kisses him, light lips and a flick of tongue, stroking his hair, finding his own comfort in the act of giving it.

For a moment, they're out of time, alone except for each other. Then Jo coughs, and Dean smiles against Cas's mouth, and Cas inhales shakily and laughs, just a little, and as they pull apart, Dean looks up and says, 'So, Ellen, this is Cas. Cas, this is Ellen, Jo's mom.' He doesn't add that she's the closest thing he has to a mother, too; with Cas, he doesn't need to.

'Hello Ellen,' says Cas, his ears turning pink.

Ellen tries to give him a Look, but ruins it by smiling. 'You'll do,' she says, and squeezes his shoulder. 'You boys look hungry. Why don't we go rustle you up some food, hm?'

'Thanks, Ellen,' says Dean, and before anyone else can protest the suggestion, Ellen herds Bobby and Jo back into the hall, throwing a not-so-subtle Look at Officer Fitzgerald as they pass. The man might be a cop, but Ellen Harvelle could command armies with a raised eyebrow alone, and as Fitzgerald glances from her to Dean and back again, he blushes and says, in that gangly, taffy-pull voice of his, 'I'll, uh, I'll stand guard, then,' and slips out after her, shutting the door behind them.

Leaving Dean and Cas alone.

For a moment, they just stare at each other, fingers tangling quietly against the sheets. Cas looks impossibly tired, his usual calm gone, leaving behind a tension and fragility that makes Dean want to wrap him up in blankets. A dull ache settles in his chest at the thought that he's at all responsible for the change, and before he can stop himself, he blurts out, 'You don't have to want me any more.'

Castiel stills. 'What do you mean?'

Dean tries to smile, but can't. 'Look at what I've done to you, Cas. I've ruined everything –'

'You haven't –'

'– and if you want out,' he forges on, though the words hurt more than his wrists, 'if you want to walk away, I'll understand, because you're not, you're not obligated to stick this out 'cos of Alistair, or Gabriel, or any of it – I'll still testify if you leave, you deserve to be happy, and I don't want you to think –'

Cas kisses him, hard and angry, and Dean tastes salt as tears slip under his tongue. 'Don't you _dare_ ,' says Cas, shaking as he pulls away, 'try and put this on yourself. I'm the one who should be giving you an out, I'm the one who left you alone, who killed someone, who – ' and this time, it's Dean who shuts him up with a kiss, gentler than the first, drawing him in. Cas kisses back, whimpering a little, and when Dean speaks again, it's a breathless murmur, soft and rushed against Cas's lips.

'I want you, Cas. I want this, I know we're all messed up but I want it anyway, and I feel like if we stop now, if we second-guess each other, it'll be like – like Orpheus, like stopping at the edge of hell and losing ourselves because we looked back instead of forward, and I've spent my whole damn life looking back and I can't, I won't do it any more, I just want you, I want to know what this feels like when I'm not dying, I want to wake up with you –'

'Me, too,' Cas whispers, and this time, the kiss is a promise.

When Ellen, Jo and Bobby finally return – bringing sandwiches and soft drink, because hospitals aren't exactly known for their many and varied food options – Dean raises a finger to silence them. Cas is asleep with his head on Dean's lap; a different nurse gave him some painkillers for his bullet graze, and less than a minute later, he was out like a light, arms crossed on the edge of the mattress as he mumbled sleepily that _I'm fine, Dean, I just need to rest my eyes for a second_. Jo makes an 'awww' face, and Dean flips her off with the hand that isn't curled protectively around Cas's shoulders, but he's smiling as he does it.

'Ran into that Henriksen guy down in the cafeteria,' says Bobby, passing Dean a turkey and cranberry sandwich. 'Seems all right, for a suit. Said forensics should be done with your place in the next few hours, and once they are, I'm cleared to go get it cleaned up.'

'And no arguing,' Ellen adds, before Dean can protest.

'Yes ma'am,' he says meekly.

'He also said,' says Bobby, in a quieter voice, 'that your ex was Alistair Sharp.'

Dean's eyes go wide. He looks at Ellen, at Jo, at Bobby, heart hammering, waiting for the inevitable condemnation, but none is forthcoming. 'Yeah,' he says, before he can lose his nerve. 'Yeah, he was. And I, uh – what else did he tell you?'

'Not much,' says Jo, cutting in with a glance at Bobby. She sounds almost apologetic. 'Just that you were going to testify to him being a crook, and that's why he came after you.'

'Oh,' says Dean, almost sagging with relief. 'Yeah, that's... that's what happened.'

Ellen gives him a sharp look, like she knows full well there's more to the story, but she doesn't press the matter, saying instead, 'Well, good riddance to him. Not that I approve of killin' on general principle, but there's some as deserve the exception.'

Oblivious to the conversation, Cas shifts in his sleep, sighing as he presses his head into Dean's thigh. Which ought to be embarrassing, given the company, but Dean doesn't have it in him to feel ashamed of anything he feels for Cas. Gently, he strokes the curve of his shoulder, ignoring the twist of the IV in his elbow.

'They should give him a bed, too,' Jo says, softly.

Dean smiles. 'They tried to, while you were gone. He said no. Didn't want to be in a different room.'

Ellen snorts. 'Smitten,' she says, rolling her eyes. 'The pair of you.' And then, with a pained dip in her voice, 'Not that I'm sayin' you didn't have your reasons, Dean, but was there any one in particular why you never came out to us?'

Quietly, Dean says, 'I didn't think I deserved it. It's a long story as to why, but that's what it boils down to.'

'But you deserve Cas?'

Dean looks down at his sleeping boyfriend. 'I want to,' he says, honestly. 'And that's more than I've had before.'

Ellen smiles at that, and the conversation moves on to safer things, like whether the police are likely to have destroyed his house in any meaningful way. The visit is restorative and tiring all at once, which Ellen seems to sense; she keeps a close eye on Dean as he eats his sandwich, then herds the others out again with a promise to come back in the morning once Sam's arrived. Dean nods, accepting a kiss on the cheek from both Jo and Ellen and exchanging manly nods with Bobby, which is contextually ridiculous but too deeply ingrained a habit to break, and then they're gone, and he makes his mattress lie flat again because he's tired of sitting up, but even so, he doesn't quite realise that he's fallen asleep until hours later, when he's suddenly startled awake by the sound of Castiel yelling.

'Jesus – ow, _fuck_!' Dean gasps, sitting up so sharply that he pulls out his remaining IV. He's completely disoriented: it looks like the middle of the night outside, but the hospital lights never quite turn all the way off. The room is silver-blue, as pale and antiseptic as a toothpaste commercial, and it's only when he looks down that he realises Cas is on the floor of the hospital room, shaking and sobbing.

'Cas!' he yelps, and stumbles out of bed on shaky legs. Head spinning, he ducks around the bed and helps Cas onto his knees, holding him close. 'Cas, baby, it's OK, I've got you, I promise, you're all right.'

Castiel clings to him, face pressed to Dean's shoulder. 'You were dying again,' he whispers. 'I was back at the house, and you were dying, and Gabriel was dying, and I couldn't – I couldn't save you, I couldn't move –'

'Oh, sweetheart.' Dean doesn't know where the endearment comes from, and just at that moment, he doesn't care. 'I'm fine. Gabriel's fine. You saved us. It's OK, it's all OK.' He rocks them both, hands stroking up Cas's back, and says, 'Come on. Get up. Get into bed with me.'

'But the drip –'

'Drip's gone, and I wanna hold you. C'mon, Cas.'

Shakily, Dean gets him upright, and somehow they manage to haul themselves up onto the skinny hospital mattress. They're just lying down when a frantic Officer Fitzgerald barges into the room, out of breath and clutching a Mars bar.

'I was just getting a snack and I heard yelling! You guys – oh. OK? OK.' He hovers in the doorway, somehow managing to look both sheepish and scared, but it takes Dean's snapped, 'We're _fine_ , dude,' for him to duck back out again, head bobbing as the door shuts.

'I'm sorry,' Cas gasps, wiping the tears off his cheeks. 'I woke you up, I'm sorry, I'm –'

'Don't,' Dean says, gently. He pulls Cas against him, covering them both with the thin blankets. 'Don't apologise for things that aren't your fault. You taught me that, remember?'

Cas nods against his shoulder, making a noise that's almost laughter. 'I remember.'

'Well, good. Because it's true.'

'I hate nightmares,' Cas mumbles, but his pulse is starting to settle, and he curls himself around Dean like a cat.

'Me, too,' says Dean, kissing his temple, 'but they're easier when you're with someone.'

Steadily, they settle into and against each other, maximising the small space, shifting so that neither is resting any weight on Cas's shoulder or Dean's wrists. Their noses bump in the not-quite-dark, and Dean chuckles, rubbing his cheek against Cas's stubble.

'Think I can get them to let us go tomorrow?'

'I don't see why not,' Cas says.

'Pure dickishness?'

'Hmm.'

Dean kisses his jaw. 'I was cooking you dinner,' he says, quietly. 'I still want to do that, Cas. We get out of here, will you stay with me?' He means to specify _overnight, tomorrow_ , but he's so tired, the extra words get left out, and suddenly he remembers that Cas called him _love_ , and the question takes on a whole new emphasis, warming the air between them like breath.

'Of course,' says Cas, and presses a sleepy kiss to Dean's chest.

They don't sleep deeply – the room is too bright, the mattress too small – but they do sleep. Dean even dreams a little, senseless skerries that scud through him like clouds. Cas whimpers once, but quiets at Dean's murmured reassurance, and somehow, despite the disapproving tongue-clicks of at least one nurse and the lack of privacy, they make it through the night without any further upset.

Morning sneaks in like a thief, and Dean ignores it, nuzzling closer to Cas, who huffs softly and runs a hand over his hip. It's just a light touch, but Dean's breath quickens at it. Slowly, he mouths his way along Cas's jaw, and Cas makes a pleased, tired noise, and they don't so much kiss as lip at each other, gentle and lazy. Dean opens his eyes, and finds Cas's blue ones smiling back at him.

'Hey, Cas.'

'Hello, Dean.'

Almost shyly, Cas lifts a hand and brings it up to cup Dean's jaw, and then they're kissing in earnest, shifting closer on the mattress, legs tangled together –

'Dean, are you – _oh my god!_ '

'Shit!' Dean yelps. Cheeks burning, he sits bolt upright, because there, standing in the doorway with one hand on the wall and the other clutching a dufflebag, is Sam. His brother is frozen in place, his contorted expression suggesting that he doesn't know whether to run away or start shouting, and when combined with the fact that this is either one of the funniest or most embarrassing moments of Dean's adulthood – or, quite possibly, both at once – the upshot is a pair of speechless, staring Winchesters.

Which leaves it up to Cas to break the silence.

'Is that your brother?' he asks innocently, glancing between them.

Sam looks mildly outraged by the question. 'Yeah, I'm his brother! Who the fuck are you?'

'I'm Castiel,' says Cas, so matter-of-factly that Dean almost bursts out laughing.

'He's my partner, Sammy,' he says instead – and then, because he can't resist, 'Didn't Bobby tell you?'

Sam's jaw goes slack. 'He said you were dating someone called Cas, but –'

'Well, this is him.' Dean grins. 'Cas, Sammy. Sammy, Cas.'

Cas props himself up on an elbow and smiles, his reddening neck and ears visible only to Dean. 'Hello, Sam. It's nice to meet you.'

'Um,' says Sam. 'It's, uh, it's nice to meet you, too.'

Grinning, Dean leans down and drops a kiss beside Cas's ear, loving the subtle shiver this produces. 'Give us a minute?' he murmurs, quiet enough that Sam can't hear, and Cas nods, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed, wincing a little as he examines the gauze on his arm.

'Painkillers,' he says, by way of explanation, and ambles out past Sam, who watches him go with all the baffled intensity of a cat who doesn't understand why the laser dot is on top of its paw instead of underneath.

'So,' says Dean, fiddling with the bed controls to bring the mattress upright. 'I, uh. I thought Bobby was bringing you in later?'

'He was going to,' says Sam, entering at last, 'but I found an earlier flight, and it seemed easier just to get a cab from the airport.' He drops his duffle beside the bed, hesitates, then leans in to give Dean a hug, which Dean returns as best he can without hurting his wrists.

'It's good to see you, Sammy.'

Sam gives an affectionate snort, lowering himself into the bedside chair. 'You're never going to stop calling me that, are you?'

'That depends. You ever going to stop being my little brother?'

'I'm four inches taller than you, Dean.'

'Hey, it's not about the height. It's about seniority.'

'You just keep telling yourself that,' says Sam, then laughs, running a hand down his face. 'God, I don't even know what's happening here. I spent the whole cab ride over practising what I was going to say, and then you're just –'

'In bed with a dude?' Dean offers.

'Pretty much, yeah. You, uh.' Sam tilts his head, lips twitching. 'You wanna fill me in on that? I mean, are you bi, or –?'

'Gay,' says Dean, quietly. He's not ashamed of himself, but there's a certain rueful sheepishness to having lied to his brother for so many years. 'I mean, I know I dated girls at school, but it wasn't – I was never really –'

'No, I get it.' Sam frowns. 'I mean – no, I do get it, but it's just weird, you know? You never brought anyone home for the holidays, but I always figured it was a commitment thing, not a closeted thing. Or, wait – wow. Hang on. Have you had partners all this time? You just never told me about them?' There's a trace of hurt in his voice, and as much as Dean wishes it wasn't there, he also feels slightly relieved. If Sam's biggest issue in all of this is Dean's lack of honesty – as opposed to, for instance, the fact that he likes cock – then, well. That's something.

'I haven't had partners, Sammy. I mean, not real partners, not – not anyone I would've liked you to meet.' He sighs, wanting to get the hard part over with. 'The guy who did this to me, Alistair? We were... well, he was married, and I wasn't exactly – I mean, it was years ago, but there was some stuff –' He breaks off, shaking his head, a tightness in his throat. 'God, this is never going to be easy to talk about, is it?'

'Dean, it's OK.' Sam smiles – the same trademark puppy-sincere smile he's had since age ten, and somehow never lost. 'You don't have to tell me everything at once. Or at all, even, if you're not comfortable with it. I mean, I _want_ to hear it, but this is clearly a big deal, and I don't want to put any pressure on you.'

Dean looks away, overwhelmed. 'Thanks,' he says, and if it comes out a little more hoarsely than before, his brother doesn't comment. Dean bites his lip, then looks back up again, steeling himself as he meets Sam's gaze. 'I – aw, hell, Sam. The Cliff's Notes is, I dated Aaron in high school, and we had a fight before his crash because he wanted to go public and I didn't. When he died, I blamed myself, and after what happened with dad, I felt so guilty that I turned it all into a punishment, like I didn't deserve to be happy. And Alistair... I mean, shit, the guy was a criminal, he tried to make it look like I'd offed myself so I wouldn't testify against him. What we had was the furthest thing from healthy –' which is still a sickening understatement, but he's not sure he'll ever be ready to tell Sam the full truth of what happened, '– and he was still the closest thing to an adult relationship I've ever really had. Until now, that is.'

Dean's laugh is shaky, but his smile feels solid all the way to his core. 'With Cas, though... god, Sammy, it's still so new, but it just feels _right_ , you know? Like I've known him forever.' He gulps, a hot blush spreading up his neck. 'Like I want to know him forever.'

'Well, that's, I mean... I'm happy for you,' says Sam, eyebrows raised. 'Really. But. Um. You dated _Aaron_?'

Dean exhales. 'Yeah. Yeah, I did.'

'Oh, man.' Sam sits back, looking stunned. 'God, Dean, I'm so sorry. I mean, I knew you guys were close, but I never – we never talked about it, you know? About any of –' He stops, a horrified expression creeping over his face. 'Dad,' he breathes, 'did dad know? Jesus, is that what you guys fought about, afterwards?'

Dean's amazed by how calmly he's able to answer. Like Sam says, it's something they've never discussed, and though the words are heavy in his mouth, the act of speaking them leaves him feeling lighter.

'Dad never knew, but I think... looking back, I think he always suspected. Or maybe he just worried about it, I don't know. Either way, he's why I wouldn't come out, when Aaron asked. What happened after the inquest, though – hell, I almost wish it had been because I was gay. That would've still been ugly, but with a reason, you know? Not just, just him lashing out because he was angrier that Aaron had wrecked his damn car than that he'd died, because he was drunk enough to think that my having a fucking panic attack about it was an insult. He beat the shit out of me, Sammy, and I let him, because I thought I deserved it.'

Sam looks anguished. 'You lied to the cops? To _me_?'

Dean stares at his hands. 'If I hadn't, I'd have lost you.'

He's not looking up, so Sam's sudden hug catches him by surprise. It's stronger than the first one, almost a python-squeeze, and he coughs in surprise and embarrassment against Sam's shoulder, not knowing what to say.

'You're an idiot, Dean,' Sam murmurs. 'You should've told me.'

'I know. I'm sorry.'

'Don't be sorry, dumbass. Just – just try to be honest with me from now on, OK?' Sam leans back again. 'I'm not fourteen any more, and all these things you've been hiding, all this crap you've been putting on yourself – if you can handle telling me, then I can handle hearing about it.'

'OK, Sammy,' Dean mumbles, and is mercifully saved from further fraternal bonding by a tentative knock on the door.

'Hello?' calls Cas, poking his head in. 'Are we interrupting?'

The smile that breaks over Dean's face on seeing him is pure happiness. 'Who's we?' he asks, and by way of answer, Cas pushes the door all the way open, revealing Bobby, Jo, Ellen and – Dean's smile widens further – Charlie.

'I picked up some strays in the lobby,' Cas says, and as he approaches, Dean swings his legs off the edge of the bed, making room for Cas to sit beside him – which he does, looping an arm around Dean's waist and pressing a kiss to his jaw.

'I saw Gabriel, too,' he murmurs, the tip of his nose brushing Dean's cheek. 'He's groggy, but he's awake. When I left, he was trying to coax Henriksen into bringing him champagne.'

'Oh, thank god.' Dean laughs and puts a hand on his knee, squeezing gently. 'You reckon he'll get some?'

'Probably. He can be very persuasive.'

Dean's reply is forestalled by the need to introduce Sam to Charlie, and then, once it becomes apparent that standing in a hallway together doesn't really count, to introduce Charlie to everyone else. It's familial and awkward, comforting and claustrophobic, sweet and weird and just a little bit wonderful to have all these people he cares about in the one room, if _wonderful_ is also a synonym for _terrifying._ It's like some fucked-up medical Thanksgiving where they're all still sober because the drunken uncles haven't shown up with the moonshine yet, and as Dean's brain goes right ahead and casts Gabriel and Rufus in those roles – as Sam and Charlie bond over a shared love of webcomics, and Cas asks Jo for any embarrassing stories she knows about Dean, and Bobby and Ellen stand back and watch the lot of them with a mixture of pride and amusement – Dean realises his life was never empty, not really; he just didn't know how to live it.

 _But I do now_ , he thinks, and with that epiphany, he leans his head on Castiel's shoulder, and lets himself feel loved.

 


	20. Chapter 20

Late in the afternoon, once Bobby brings Dean some actual clothes – he was admitted naked, but despite Cas's enthusiasm for the idea, he refuses to leave that way – the hospital staff and Henriksen agree to see them both discharged. Unsurprisingly, and despite some minor familial bickering in the Winchester/Singer/Harvelle camp (Dean offered Sam his usual room at the house, Sam refused to impose; Bobby insisted he stay with them, Sam still refused to impose; Ellen called Sam an idiot and gave him a Look, Sam relented, and Jo cackled until Sam put her in a headlock) the news is greeted with universal enthusiasm. Even so, they don't leave straight away: there's paperwork to be filled out, and once that's done, they both stop in to see how Gabriel's doing.

To Castiel's relief and no small degree of embarrassment, his brother is feeling sufficiently recovered to flirt outrageously with the hospital staff, who thankfully seem to be more amused than offended. As he and Dean each pull up a chair, Cas tries to state his intention to visit every day, but only gets a sentence in before Gabriel cuts him off with a snort rendered somewhat less imperious than usual by the breathing tube in his nose.

'For the love of god, Cassie, there's no point both of us being stuck in here. Go spoon your boyfriend in an actual bed. You wanna do something nice for me, send me a strippergram – or better yet, get me a doctor's number. A cute doctor, mind. I might be sick, but I still have standards.'

Cas rolls his eyes. 'You've never had standards. Remember that air steward you brought to my birthday?'

Gabriel groans. 'God, don't remind me. It was a momentary lapse in judgement.'

'You dated him for two weeks!'

'A long lapse, then.'

Dean chuckles, earning himself a dirty smirk from Gabriel and an amused smile from Cas.

'Did Anna say when she's getting in?' Gabe asks, after a moment.

Cas winces slightly. 'Tomorrow, I think. I said she could let our parents know, but she's still angry that I won't tell Luke.'

'You let me worry about that,' says Gabe, and as his gaze flicks to Dean, Cas could almost swear his brother and his boyfriend share – well, not a _moment_ , exactly, but something like solidarity. 'Henriksen's bringing Lucifer in for questioning right now, and he's promised to bring me the interview tape. Whatever his involvement is, I'll find it out, and he'll answer for it.'

'Thanks, Gabe,' Dean says, and Cas reaches out to him, resting a hand on his leg. 'I appreciate it.'

Gabe gives a lazy wave, then winces as his IV pulls; there's a cannula stuck in the back of his hand, the veins in his arms apparently having been deemed 'uncooperative'. He looks on the verge of protest when he suddenly does a double-take, smiling like all his Christmases have come at once. Cas mistrusts the expression on general principle, and when he turns to see what – or who, rather – has caught Gabriel's attention, he doesn't know whether to be appalled or surprised when it turns out to be Sam Winchester.

Who is, it must be said, worth looking at. As tall as Dean is, Sam is taller: broad-shouldered, narrow-hipped and flatteringly muscular, with hazel eyes, shaggy brown hair and features that manage the uncommon trick of being both strong and delicate. It was hardly Castiel's first thought on meeting Sam, but now that he's here, the extent to which he personifies Gabriel's taste in men is almost comically striking.

'Now _that_ ,' says Gabriel, smiling about as saucily as one can from a hospital bed, 'is more like it.'

'More like what?' says Sam.

Gabriel grins. 'The good things in life.'

Dean looks between Cas and Gabe, Gabe and Sam, then back to Cas again, his expression flickering between disbelief and outrage before finally settling on fraternal glowering.

'Oh, dude. Gabriel. _No_. That's my little brother, man!'

Gabriel pulls a face, appraising Sam in a whole new light. 'Seriously?' He whistles. 'Your family gets all the good genes.'

Sam blinks, turning to Cas while pointing at Gabriel. 'Your brother?'

'I'm afraid so.'

'Is he, uh... is he hitting on me?'

'I'm trying to,' Gabriel deadpans, 'but these asshats aren't making it easy.'

'Well then,' says Sam, and grins slyly enough to give even Gabe a run for his money. 'I guess I'll just have to come back when they're gone.'

Dean chokes on air. 'Oh my god. I didn't hear that. I did _not_ hear that. And besides,' he adds, glaring up at his brother, 'aren't you straight?'

Sam shrugs, clearly enjoying himself. 'I prefer to think of myself as heteroflexible.'

'I can work with that,' says Gabriel, and winks.

'Is there something you wanted, Sam?' Cas asks, lips twitching, while Dean mouths the word _heteroflexible_ in quiet disbelief.

'Oh!' says Sam, snapping back to himself. 'Uh, just to say that we're all heading back to Bobby and Ellen's, and that you guys should call if you need anything. Oh, and Ellen wants to try and have everyone over for lunch on Sunday, assuming you're all feeling up to it. She's invited Charlie and that Henriksen guy, but Cas, if any of your family are interested, she said to invite them, too. I think Dean mentioned your sister was flying in?'

'Tomorrow, yeah,' says Cas, smiling. There's a genuineness to Sam that contrasts nicely with his sharp sense of humour, and even though he'd never expected to dislike Dean's brother, Cas still feels strangely happy at the thought of them getting along. 'That's very kind of her, thank you. I'll let Anna know.'

'Hey!' says Gabriel. 'Am I invited to this shindig, or what?'

'That depends,' says Dean, eyes narrowing. 'You reckon you can manage to go an afternoon without falling down or sleazing onto my family members?'

'I promise nothing,' says Gabriel loftily. 'Now go home, you two. Leave me to the tender ministrations of the taller, younger Winchester.'

'And if they're not so tender?' says Sam, raising an eyebrow.

Gabriel almost chokes on his laughter. 'Oh, I like this one! And for the record,' he says, waggling an eyebrow, 'I can work with that, too.'

'God help me,' Dean groans. 'I think I'm getting a visual.'

Cas leans over and gives him a kiss on the cheek. 'Stop pouting. You promised me dinner, remember?'

'Yeah, Dean,' says Sam, still grinning hugely. 'You promised him dinner.'

Because Dean is apparently five years old, he responds by sarcastically mouthing the phrase as he gets up: _you promised him dinner_ , rolling his eyes at Sam and making a flappy mouth with his hand. Castiel lets out a very undignified snigger, and on that buoyant wave of fraternal maturity, they finally leave the room, the ward and the hospital, Dean muttering imprecations under his breath the whole way to the cab rank.

He quiets on the drive home, however, sliding over the seat to rest his head on Cas's shoulder. Cas knows just how he feels, and leans on Dean in turn. Even knowing that Bobby and Henriksen have cleaned the place up, he can't stop picturing blood everywhere – smeared on the cabinets, puddled on the floor, staining the bath – and when they finally leave the cab and reach the front door, a tattered ribbon of police tape still waving from the pale wood, they both have to brace themselves.

Dean rests a palm on the door, eyes closed, and Cas puts his arms around him.

And then they enter.

Shakily, Dean trails his hand along the wall, seeming to draw strength from the contact. Cas's mouth is dry as they reach the kitchen – and then, strangely, watering, because the whole house smells delicious.

'What the –?' Dean mutters, eyes going wide as he takes in the yellow Post-It stuck to the side of his slow cooker. He plucks it up, scans the text, and gives a faint huff of laughter. 'The cops saved my chilli,' he says, a statement which makes no sense to Cas until Dean hands him the note to read, the handwriting neat and careful.

_It seemed a waste to throw it out, so I turned down the heat and let it cook._

_Save me a bowl, maybe?_

_\- Pam Barnes_

'I'll be damned,' says Cas, smiling despite himself. 'You really did make me dinner.'

'I really did,' says Dean, lifting the lid on the cooker and inhaling deeply. 'Oh, _fuck_ , that smells good. From now on, all my chilli get simmered for two days, minimum.'

'That sounds –' Cas's gaze skates sideways and down, and all at once, his heart double-thumps in his chest. He stops and stares, breathing hard. _Oh. Oh, god._

There's a stain on the floorboards.

It's faint, scrubbed to a near-blending brown rather than vivid red, but bigger than a handprint, the wood uneven where two planks don't quite lie flush, and it's where Alistair died, _where Castiel killed him_ , bare hands smashing his head down until it broke like an egg, like a cracked cup spilling out blood, like he's some animal who doesn't know how to make or touch or paint, just break, like he's breaking now, because killing a monster doesn't mean you're not monstrous in turn –

'Cas. Cas, baby, please, breathe, you gotta breathe, OK sweetheart?'

Cas jerks his gaze away, or maybe Dean does it for him – his hands are cupping his face, thumbs stroking worriedly up and back, up and back – and Castiel focusses on green eyes, soft touch, freckles.

'I'm all right.' He gulps it out, wanting it to be true. 'I'm fine, I just –'

Dean kisses him, a hesitant brush of lips, like he's not sure it's the right thing to do, but Castiel moans and tugs him closer, losing himself in the moment. He doesn't know whether he pushes or Dean pulls, but suddenly they're moving backwards into the bedroom, hands needy and gentle all at once as they undress around their injuries. The necessity of it slows them down, but somehow, that only makes it feel more urgent. Trembling, Dean lifts the hem of Cas's shirt and pulls it up over his head, leaning in to kiss his tattoos as they become visible. Cas raises his arms, hissing slightly as the shirt brushes his bandage.

Instantly, Dean stops, dropping the shirt and sliding his fingertips gently up the inside of Cas's arm, thumbing softly around the gauze. 'Did I hurt you?'

'No,' Cas breathes, too distracted by the feel of Dean's hands to notice anything else.

'Good.' Dean leans in, kissing his shoulder, mouthing at the ink, and god, Cas is never going to tire of that, of the reverent way Dean has of touching him, like his whole body is art. Trembling, he undoes the buttons on Dean's shirt, sliding it off his shoulders, wincing at the sight of his wrists. Not touching the gauze, he lifts Dean's hands and kisses his palms.

 _I love you._ He almost says it, but even after everything, it still feels too soon, too momentous. Instead, he slides a hand over the warm curve of Dean's hip and murmurs, 'I almost lost you.'

'You saved me, Cas.' Dean ducks his head, shyly. 'And not just from Alistair.'

'Hey.' Cas lifts his chin with a fingertip, thinking of Zachariah, and the unfinished painting still in his studio. 'I think you saved me, too.'

Shivering now, they undress the rest of the way and get into bed, every touch and kiss featherlight, like they're wary of bruising each other.

'Will you –?' Dean asks, in the same breath that Cas says, 'Can I –?'

They smile at the synchronicity. Instead of answering, Cas settles Dean against the pillows and kisses him deeply, pressing their bodies together. He takes his time like he did with the massage, trying to say with touch what he's still too afraid to voice with words. He kisses every inch of Dean, tracing patterns on his chest and thighs, teasing his cock without ever wholly swallowing it, until Dean is strung out and whimpering.

'Please, Cas?' he asks, running his hands through Castiel's hair.

'All right,' says Cas, and gets the lube from the bedside table.

He opens Dean up as gently as he knows how, slow and sensual, savouring every breathless gasp he wrings from him. He's aching with anticipation, kissing across Dean's ribs and hips as he tries to hold back, but three fingers in, when Dean tips his head back and begs, 'Cas, _fuck me_ ,' his patience dissolves completely. Panting, he slicks himself up, splaying his knees between Dean's thighs, pushing them both wide, and sinks into him, gripping his hips.

'Dean,' he gasps, unable to look away from him, and Dean just arches his back and moans, hands twisting in the sheets. Or trying to, anyway; his fingers flex and smooth, seeking a stronger purchase than he's able to take, and instantly Cas shifts position, pushing Dean's legs back as he leans down and kisses him, forearms bracketing his head. He can't move as much or as fast like this, but it doesn't matter; they're so close together, noses and foreheads brushing, each one breathing what the other exhales, and when Dean's hands come up to glide along his sides, Cas shudders above him, sucking a possessive kiss into his throat.

'Cas,' Dean says, the one word somewhere between a prayer and a whimper, and with his right hand still on Cas's ribs, he trails the left one up and under, cupping the edge of his jaw. Cas moans, dropping his weight further onto his elbows, curling a hand around to tangle in Dean's hair, nails stroking his scalp. They're both wide-eyed, staring into each other as they gasp and shift, and as slow as it is, it's also the most exquisitely intimate sex of Castiel's life. He aches with it, nerves burning, dragging kisses along Dean's jaw as he moves over him; he feels drugged, like his blood is under the tidal pull of some strange new moon, and all he can think is _I love you, I love you, I love you._

Before the words can slip out, Cas leans down and captures his mouth in a kiss, and Dean whimpers into him, arching up as he comes, warm salt painting both their chests. It's enough to bring Cas over the edge in turn, sucking Dean's lip between his teeth as he shudders through a climax so intense, it leave him seeing stars. Gasping, he presses their foreheads together, peppering kisses across Dean's cheeks as they shudder through the aftershocks. Neither of them can speak; they're too breathless even for proper laughter. Cas nuzzles Dean's neck, tasting sweat, feeling the rapid thump of his pulse through his lips and tongue.

Heedless of the mess, Dean pulls their bodies back together, fingers tracing lazy patterns over Cas's neck and shoulders, toying with the damp curls of his hair. Cas lifts his head just enough to kiss him again, rolling down alongside Dean in the process. He's still half-cradling his head, and as he moves, the hand comes to rest on Cas's cheek, stroking softly.

'Castiel,' Dean breathes, the syllables of his full name chiming through him like music. 'God, Cas, what was that?'

 _It was love._ 'Us, I think.'

Dean smiles. 'Yeah?'

'Definitely,' says Cas, and for a long while, they don't say anything at all, just basking in the warmth of each other, the nearness and safety of it. Gently, Castiel lifts Dean's hand, kissing each of his fingertips in turn, sucking the pads lightly into his mouth.

'We should get cleaned up,' Dean says, breath hitching, eyes still fixed on Cas. 'Have, uh. Have dinner.'

'We should,' says Cas, and kisses the heel of his palm.

And then he sits up and gets out of bed, leaving Dean to groan behind him.

'Dude, really?'

'Hey, you're the one who suggested it. Besides, I'm starving.' He pauses in the doorway, smiling. 'Look at it this way: the sooner we eat, the sooner we can come back to bed.'

'Yeah, yeah,' says Dean, and staggers to his feet. 'I'm coming.'

They enter the bathroom together, hips brushing as they squeeze through the door. Though Cas's heart beats a little faster, the sight of the room doesn't bother him like he'd worried it might. There's no blood left behind, nothing but clean tiles and porcelain; nothing to say that _here_ is the spot where Dean lay bleeding, or _there_ the place where Alistair knelt. Dean, though, starts shaking almost instantly, and Cas puts his arms around him, murmuring reassurances into his ear.

'It's all right, love, I've got you. You're safe.'

Dean buries his face in Cas's shoulder, breathing deeply. 'God,' he says, laughing weakly, 'I'm gonna have to sell up, aren't I? Fucking Alistair.'

Cas strokes his back. 'It's our first day back, Dean. We're allowed to be a bit overwhelmed.'

'I know that,' says Dean, straightening, 'but it's... they're not good memories, Cas. I know we're gonna move forward, put it behind us or whatever, but until that happens, I'd rather be able to have a damn shower without flashing back, or for you to walk through the kitchen without getting triggered.'

'I get that,' says Cas, and kisses his temple. 'But you don't have to decide anything right now, OK?'

'OK,' Dean mumbles, and lets Cas coax him into the shower. Of necessity, they stick to the basics, with Cas doing most of the cleaning-work so that Dean can keep his wrists dry. It's awkward, but they manage, and once they're out and dressed comfortably in boxers and two of Dean's oldest, softest shirts, they make it out to the kitchen table, Cas sitting down as Dean turns the slow cooker off and puts on a pot of rice.

It's then, with Dean preoccupied, that Castiel finds himself looking at a bottle of wine, a necklace and a box of chocolates, all laid out beneath a spray of flowers which, he's quite sure, weren't on the table during his last visit. He feels his cheeks warm and says, hesitantly, 'Were these for me?'

Dean looks over and blushes in turn. 'They still are, if you want them,' he says, ducking his head. 'But, uh, if you don't like the necklace, you don't have to pretend. I won't be offended or anything.'

Cas picks up the item in question, breath catching as he examines it. Strung on plain leather is a small bee, about the size of his big thumbnail, made from obviously repurposed bits of metal: the faceted eyes are screw-tips welded together, the body a mix of lugnuts and shavings alternated to delineate stripes, the wings made from fine wire mesh. It's been done so cleverly that even though the composite materials are all clearly identifiable, it still looks realistic; Cas turns it over and over, astonished by the level of detail, the care taken to smooth and weld such a small, complete thing into life.

'You made this?' he asks, wrenching his gaze away for long enough to look at Dean.

Dean shrugs, stirring the rice. 'Yeah, I've got a bunch of 'em. Different animals, things, you know. Some nights I have trouble sleeping, and it helps to have something to focus on, something small. Calms me down. But, uh. I thought the bee suited you.' He doesn't quite look up. 'Like I said, it's OK if you don't –'

Cas loops the leather over his head and strides across the room, wrapping his arms around Dean and kissing the back of his neck.

'It's beautiful,' he murmurs. 'God, _you're_ beautiful, and amazing, and I – can I see the others?'

'You really want to?' says Dean, surprised. He puts down the spoon he's using to stir the rice and turns in Cas's arms.

'Dean Winchester,' says Cas, fond exasperation colouring his voice. 'Yes, I really want to. I want to see everything you've made, eventually, but right now, I especially want to see your charms.'

'Oh.' Dean blushes, freckles standing out across the bridge of his nose. 'They're, uh. They're in a box under the bed.'

'In a box under the –' Cas breaks off, and with a frustrated shake of his head, he grabs Dean's hips and pulls him close. 'You _impossible_ man,' Cas growls, and kisses him soundly up against the kitchen bench. Dean makes a shocked noise, then kisses back with equal fervour, arms coming up to twine around Cas's neck. When they finally break apart, Dean looks dazed.

'You really think it's good?' he asks, breathlessly.

Cas presses against him, kissing his neck. 'Yes,' he says, firmly. 'Now show me the others.'

Shoulders still tensed with self-consciousness – though less than they were a minute ago – Dean leads Cas into the bedroom, where he kneels down and withdraws out an ancient, battered Ninja Turtles lunchbox.

'Here,' he says, and flips it open, setting it on the covers.

Cas sits down on the mattress, eyes wide. There must be close to a hundred charms in the box, all of them different. Lizards, cats, birds, mice and other beautifully wrought creatures lie alongside stranger, more abstract pieces. There's a nail twisted into the shape of a question mark, a fine piece of wire suspending a doll's eye to serve as the dot, and a snake made from bits of old aluminium cans, the coloured stripes curled in a corkscrew shape suspended from a forked tongue. Castiel spends a long minute holding one piece in particular, a crab made from what looks like car parts, black and oily-seeming and perfect, its claws the toothed heads of tiny metal jump leads. He stares at Dean, at the still-embarrassed look on his face, and feels his heart crack.

'Dean,' he says, needing him to understand, 'these are extraordinary. Do you realise that? Every single thing in here, every piece – you could sell these in shops. You _should_ sell them, or at least show them to people. They're more than beautiful; they're clever and simple and complicated all at once, and I refuse to let you keep them locked up in an old lunchbox under your bed like they're something to be ashamed of.'

Dean swallows. 'They're just –'

'If you say _junk_ ,' Cas says, 'then so help me, I'll withhold blowjobs for a month.'

Dean blinks, then sets his jaw, a crafty look crossing his face. 'All right,' he says, folding his arms. 'I'll make you a deal. I'll try and sell my stuff if you do the same with your paintings.'

Cas opens his mouth. Shuts it again. 'That's different,' he says at last.

'Oh?' Dean arches an eyebrow. 'How?'

'Because you're not –' he looks away, struggling with the sudden knot in his throat, this ugly thing he's never been able to talk about, but which has nonetheless defined him. He takes a deep breath, fists clenched on his knees. He told Gabriel some of the truth, but Dean deserves to hear all of it, and for the first time in his life, Cas feels like he can explain. 'Because,' he says, quietly, 'I grew up thinking what I do is an illness. Or as a symptom of one, anyway.'

Dean comes to sit beside him, squeezing Cas's hand. 'An illness?'

Shakily, Cas nods. 'I told you I had a twin sister, one who died when I was born?'

'You did.'

'Her name was Hannah. And I... well, I was lonely a lot, growing up. So I started to draw her. Talk to her, even – I mean, I knew she was dead, I just wished she wasn't, that I had someone to be close to. She was the first thing I ever really drew, this dark-haired girl – I always made her look like me, but in a white dress – and once they realised, it freaked my parents out. They waited until my brothers and sister were out of the house, then sent me away for two months to this, this psychiatric camp for kids. Apparently, they told the others I was sick and contagious in hospital, and none of them ever questioned it; I only found that part out the other day, when it came up with Gabriel. '

'Oh, Cas.' Dean looks horrified. 'That is messed up.'

'I know. Or I know now, anyway. But they didn't send me home again until I stopped drawing altogether.' He hesitates, trying to find the words, and Dean just waits, smoothing his thumb gently over the back of Cas's knuckles, until he can speak. 'It was years before I started again – long enough that I thought it would be OK. But as soon as my parents noticed, I started getting odd looks. I wasn't even drawing Hannah, but they had this idea that my drawing at all was a sign that I was sick, because I liked maths and science and clearly, that meant I wasn't naturally creative – hell, I hadn't drawn since I was a kid, so it had to be a symptom, right?' He can't keep the anger out of his voice, and Dean just presses closer to him, listening.

'So they took me to another psychologist. She said there was nothing wrong with me; they found another one, who said the same thing. And another one. And another one. All these appointments and questions, they kept asking me about Hannah, if I felt OK, and it was driving me nuts, you know? I didn't understand why they wanted me to be sick, or what they thought was wrong with me – I was so _angry_ about it.' He exhales sharply, staring at his hands. 'God, it's so stupid. In retrospect, it's so stupidly obvious, but I was ten, I didn't _think._ I couldn't talk to anyone about how I felt, so I just... drew more. As an outlet. And because I was angry, the drawings were angry. Everything got darker, cages and storms and teeth, and I was already hiding my sketchbooks, but when they found those ones, they really got worried. And that was the stuff they took to the next psychologist, and _he_ said I had a problem.

'I ended up medicated, is the upshot. Not, not badly, but enough that I had to take anxiety pills whenever my parents thought I was 'slipping', and I didn't – it was years before I realised that 'slipping' just meant 'being defiant', or doing something they didn't like. They used it like a leash, but they always acted so worried, like it was all for my own good. Never mind that Luke and Gabriel practically got away with murder, but I had to be the good son, I was always the good son, and maybe they controlled me because they couldn't control the others, but that doesn't excuse it, you know? And even though I kept drawing, I had to be careful. I had no privacy about it, I couldn't put anything real into what I made because I was scared they'd send me away again. I was miserable, and I didn't know how to say that I was miserable, so I internalised it instead. I taught myself that's what normal felt like.

'And then, finally, I went away to college, and it was like... I can't even describe it. The world just opened up, piece by piece. For the first time in my life, I could draw what I wanted – I started taking art classes in my free time, going to galleries, all that stuff. I realised I wanted to switch degrees. But my parents were still paying for my education; for everything, really, and I was terrified of going into debt, of being on my own. So I asked for their permission.'

'You told me they threatened to cut you off,' says Dean, still stroking his hand.

'They did. They did say that.' Cas gulps. 'They also threatened to try and have me committed again.'

'They _what_?'

'I don't think they could've done it,' Cas says quickly, 'not really – I mean, I was functional, I I'd always been functional, I wasn't a minor any more, and it's not like I thought for a second they could just get me admitted somewhere because I liked painting. But I didn't want to fight them; I didn't want to have to spend the rest of my life explaining that I wasn't sick, defending myself and my choices over and over and over, every Christmas, every birthday, every Thanksgiving. And I knew it was about the money, too – they wanted me to have a career they approved of, where I'd earn a decent salary, and what if I couldn't make it as an artist? I was afraid of struggling, that I'd take this huge risk and never succeed, have nothing to show for it except that I'd let everyone down. And I thought, well, I could still paint, I could still do it for myself – I just couldn't try to make it more than it was. Keep it a hobby, you know. That way, everyone would be happy.'

'But you weren't,' says Dean, softly, and Cas shakes his head.

'I've never told anyone that before,' he says, after a moment.

Dean twines their fingers together and kisses his cheek. 'Thank you for telling me. Your parents are dicks. And I – I think we should both ask Charlie for help, you know. About putting our stuff online. It's a start, right? Baby steps.'

'Baby steps,' Cas echoes, and when Dean smiles at him, it feels like a beginning.

Still holding hands, they go back to the kitchen and serve up the chilli and rice, though in deference to the fact that they can't seem to bear to be out of contact, they end up eating on the couch, legs and shoulders bumping. The food is fantastically good, and when Dean clears away the bowls – he insists on doing it himself – he comes back with two glasses, the bottle of wine and the box of chocolates, curling up with Cas like it's something they've been doing for years.

'Pick a movie,' says Dean, handing him the remote, and when Cas opens his mouth to ask _what kind_ , Dean grins and pops a chocolate on his tongue. It's a salt caramel, and as the taste of it fills his mouth, Cas feels his last and greatest fear slip away.

'Dean?'

'Mm?'

Cas leans across and kisses him gently, smiling against his lips. 'I think I might be in love with you.'

Dean pulls him closer, kissing the corner of Cas's mouth. 'Funny,' he says, and they're close enough that Cas can feel the way his pulse leaps, the sudden hitch in his breathing. 'I was thinking the same about you.'

They look at each other, green eyes on blue, and then ruin the moment by laughing.

'God,' says Cas, resting his head on Dean's chest, 'we're a pair of idiot saps, you know that?'

'Yeah, yeah,' says Dean, and kisses his temple, fondness in his voice. 'Now shut up and pick a movie.'

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Couldn't resist a little Sabriel flirting at the end! I've really loved writing this fic, and while I could happily produce about a million pages of quasi-angsty fluff from this point onwards - Dean tentatively starting therapy with Benny, and eventually convincing Cas to come along with him; Cas and Dean getting a house together; Charlie setting up an Etsy account for Dean and a Deviantart for Cas; lunch at Bobby and Ellen's place; Sam and Gabriel having drunken makeouts and then not talking about it, because brothers and long distance, then sexting each other in the leadup to a joint family Christmas (where they end up very publicly kissing under the mistletoe); Cas having his first art showing and insisting on Dean showing some of his pieces there, too; Charlie volunteering to be a cool aunt surrogate mother when Cas and Dean want to have kids, because she's curious about pregnancy and wants to pass on her genes without any actual maternal responsibilities - and maybe one day I'll write some or all of those, as standalone fics - this felt like the right place to draw the curtain on the main story. So. Hope you like it, and thanks for reading!


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